Imagine being able to dump your Minecraft creations into the real world for other people to find. You could put an exploding creeper in your school, a cheeky pig in your garden, or a giant enemy crab on the beach, if you like. The Minecraft Reality app for iOS lets you do just that.

It’s been developed for iOS devices by 13th Lab – a bunch of clever augmented reality folks – with the help of Mojang. The app uses your iOS device’s camera to track the surroundings, before projecting creations onto the landscape. You get to view the mind-boggling results on-screen. You can change the size of your object as you please, and even wander around it to view from different angles. It’s seriously impressive stuff that’s almost guaranteed to make people go “ooooo” and “ahhhhh.”

Here’s an example of the wonder-tech in action.

Thanks to super-clever GPS technology, you’ll be able to plant your creations in specific places in the world for other people to find. They can then boot up the app and view your builds in all their glory. The app also comes with a few pre-loaded models to get you started. Minecraft Reality is available to download now. It costs $1.99.

Please be careful when crossing the road, or operating heavy machinery when using this thing. Accidents are not the Mojang way. For more on Minecraft Reality, visit 13th Lab’s official site.

Have you ever thought about learning to program? Where would you begin? How much would it cost? What would you need to get things moving?

The Raspberry Pi is a credit card-sized computer that’s a great starting point. It’s cheap, capable, and approachable for newbie programmers. It’s also extremely fun to play around with, no matter your experience with code. Plug it into a TV or monitor, attach a keyboard, and begin.

Soon you’ll be able to play and program with Minecraft on one of the snazzy little devices. Aron and Daniel have dedicated time to porting a version of Minecraft: Pocket Edition that comes with a revised feature set and support for multiple programming languages. We’re calling it Minecraft: Pi Edition, and it will be completely free to download.

The possibilities are massive. You could organise the cheapest LAN party of all time, or use the Pi to learn the fundamentals of programming on a miniscule budget. It’s like hacking your way into Minecraft and modifying the game world with code, a bit like being Notch, Jeb, or Nathan, but arguably more fun and less stressful.

You can start by building structures in the traditional Minecraft way, but once you’ve got to grips with the in-game features, there’s opportunity to break open the code and use programming language to manipulate things in the game world. You’ll be learning new skills through Minecraft.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation are a registered charity. They sell the Pi from $35, and ship them all around the world. It’s already being used in schools to get children interested in programming and help them learn Linux, which Daniel describes as “the operating system of the future.” It’s a great way to widen people’s perspective on what computers can achieve.

We’re extremely excited to be involved, and can’t wait to show you more. Read more about the Pi, and find out what you need to get started, at their official site and dedicated wiki. Minecraft: Pi Edition will be available to download soon.

Couldn’t make it out to MINECON in Paris. Don’t worry. This weekend, thanks to our amazing friends over at Gamespot, you can catch the whole thing.

Here’s the Schedule:

Saturday 24 November - Join the live stream
Opening Ceremony 1:30am Pacific | 9:30am GMT | 8:30pm Sydney
Incredible Custom Map Making 2:45am Pacific | 10:45am GMT | 9:45pm Sydney
Chat with Notch 4:00am Pacific | 12:00pm GMT | 11:00pm Sydney
Mojang’s New Game: Scrolls 5:15am Pacific | 1:15pm GMT | 12:15am Sun Sydney
Live from The Museum of Mojang 6:00am Pacific | 3:00pm GMT | 1:00am Sun Sydney
Future Updates with the Minecraft PC Team 6:30am Pacific | 2:30pm GMT | 1:30am Sun Sydney

Sunday 25 November – Join the live stream
The Genius that is Hat Films 1:30am Pacific | 9:30am GMT | 8:30pm Sydney
Creativity with Redstone 2:45am Pacific | 10:45am GMT | 9:45pm Sydney
Master Builders: FyreUK 4:00am Pacific | 12:00pm GMT | 11:00pm Sydney
Taking over Youtube – Captainsparklez 5:15am Pacific | 1:15pm GMT | 12:15am Mon Sydney
Closing Ceremony 6:00am Pacific | 2:45pm GMT | 1:45am Mon Sydney

Don’t worry if it’s too early or too late for you, we will be re-running it each day so no one has to miss out!

Grab your friends and throw a MINECON party at home.

Also keep up with everything happening as we live blog the events. Use the hashtag #MINECON2012 to possibly have some of your content on the blog.

I’ll either see you in Paris or on the live-stream!

Lydia
@lydiawinters

Wondering what’s going on at Minecon.

Download the official interactive schedule with the maps on your iOS or Android device.

We will also be turning the Minecon Site into a live blog of the event. Use #MINECON2012 on twitter, tumblr, instagram, and everywhere else and your content could end up on the page.

Not able to attend Minecon. Gamespot will be running a live-stream of all things MINECON for the weekend. Grab some friends, make some creeper cookies, and watch the event from the comfort of your home.

See you in Paris or on your computer!

Touchdown in Nairobi, Kenya. It’s my first time in Africa and to say the least I am quite nervous. As a sheltered 25 year old from an upper middle class family the thought of visiting the slums of Kibera was a bit daunting. I prepared myself mentally for seeing people in terrible distress and sadness. News stories of African babies fighting to survive flashed through my head as we drove to the slum with our liaison for UN Habitat.

Kibera is one of the largest slums in Africa with estimates of anywhere from 200,000-700,000 people crammed in less than a two square kilometer radius. It’s also the site for the Block by Block pilot project. The people in the area have a sports field and public grounds in need of a revival. The idea is to use Minecraft to help the community visualize the changes for the area. Instead of looking at a 2D architectural drawing which can be hard for people to visualize they will be able to move within the game and get a feel for what it would be like there when things are changed. It also allows youth, a usually unheard portion of the community, give their input.

Standing in Kibera. Lack of makeup and general tiredness as a result from the trip.

I’d seen the area already within the game. I felt ready. Scared and nervous, but ready. We arrived, waited for our security guards (a necessary precaution), and then started walking towards the middle of Kibera. Then something happened for which I was entirely unprepared. Yes, there were children playing in unsanitary conditions. Yes, I never felt completely safe. Yes, I knew many people there had difficult lives and had experiences beyond what I could ever comprehend. But what I wasn’t prepared for was the hope.

I walked by two little girls hula hooping, something my younger sister and I had done many times together as children. Laughing and smiling, the girls swung their bodies to keep the hula hoops off the ground, hoops made of wire. Wires had been twisted together to form the toys these two small girls used. And there it was… ingenuity. Ingenuity became the theme of everything I saw from that point on. The people were inventive, creative, resourceful, far beyond what I consider myself to be. They use everything they possibly can. Coming from the wastefulness of the United States it was incredible to see how even scraps were repurposed. Could I make a working hula hoop? Probably not. I’ve been trained in a consumerist culture. Buy. Don’t make. On my walk through the slums of Kibera my perception was quickly changed.

Stopping to look at one of the shops along the railroad track in Kibera.

Instantly, the Block by Block project became more real to me. Not only because I was able to stand in the exact area I had seen within Minecraft, but because I saw our purpose. Not to come in and change something to our own accord, but to empower an already incredibly community to have their visions for the area realized.

Buy a Skin Pack. It will help create a public space somewhere around the world using Minecraft through the proceeds raised.

Public space in real life and recreated in Minecraft.

[Block by Block aims to involve youth in the planning process in urban areas by giving them the opportunity to show planners and decision makers how they would like to see their cities in the future. Minecraft has turned out to be the perfect tool to facilitate this process. The three-year partnership will support UN-Habitat to upgrade 300 public spaces by 2016.]

Hey hey!

Unfortunately we have to patch Minecraft again, this time to fix the broken LAN server functionality. Good news is that this only affects the client, so 1.4.5 clients will be able to play on 1.4.4 servers without any problems.

Fixes included:

• Clients now get the correct IP for LAN servers
• Fixed the incorrect positions of some particles
• … and fixes for MC-2507, MC-2508, MC-2500, and MC-2498

Download the pre-release here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/1_4_5/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/1_4_5/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

This release will be uploaded to the launcher on Tuesday next week (November 20).

// The Minecraft Team

Update: The client jar-file has been updated, this time with particles properly fixed.

We’ll just quickly post to let you know that the Minecraft 1.4.4 update now can be downloaded in the Minecraft launcher. It’s the same build we pre-released last week, and is mainly intended to fix bugs and glitches. Check the previous posts for more info:

• 1.4.4 pre-release
• 1.4.3 pre-release

Have fun!

// The Minecraft Team

Jeepers creepers! Crikey! Jawch! Inoffensive exclamation native to your home country! Minecraft has sold 8 million copies on PC and Mac. That’s a lot. Not as many as the The Sims 2 or Half-Life 2, but more than the Sims 2: Pets and Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty according to this page. It’s a big number, basically.

I asked Jeb for some words to highlight the awesomeness of the sales and got this back: “I can’t think of anything clever to say. It’s simply amazing.”

Notch replied with this: 69I960EHE0A4A0IVG0EHE02500R4R0G1T30PLJ00V6V0EHE0V1U01V10U5U0VGV0V4R

Thanks for buying Minecraft everyone! Have a lovely day. :D

Owen – @bopogamel

You can play Minecraft on a heap of different platforms: PC, Mac, iOS, Android, and Xbox 360. Phew. But how do you play Minecraft? And, more importantly, what do you think Notch hides under his hat?

In the spirit of the recent US election, I thought I’d host a survey. Don’t feel pressured to answer any of these questions though. This is just for fun, and will have almost no discernable impact on Minecraft’s future development.

I’ll share some of the most amusing responses in a future post. Please be nice! If the server doesn’t load in your browser, access it here. Thanks for participating! Have a lovely day! :D

There were two important new problems in the 1.4.3 pre-release that we had to fix, so here’s a pre-release of 1.4.4 instead! We hope to publish it in the launcher in the middle of next week.

The changes since 1.4.3 is:

• Another 20 or so issues fixed, full list here: 1.4.4 issue list
• Fixed the “unable to swim upwards” bug (prevented a 1.4.3 official release)
• Fixed the “placed torches jump between walls” bug (also prevented a 1.4.3 release)

Download the pre-release here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/1_4_4/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/1_4_4/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

Report bugs here:

• Minecraft issue tracker!

// The Minecraft Team

US residents! Now you can buy Minecraft for PC/Mac in real-life stores! Very exciting stuff.

The pre-paid cards spell good news for many reasons.

• Credit card details are no longer required to buy Minecraft. Handy if your mum/gran/rabbit doesn’t like handing over numbers online.
• You can buy Minecraft for real-life money taken from a wallet, pocket, or piggy bank. Not just any wallet, pocket, or piggy bank – one you’re allowed to access. Otherwise it’s stealing. Stealing is bad.
• It’s now possible to slip Minecraft into a birthday/Christmas card as a surprise bonus gift. What a nice thing to do.
• Cards can be sent anywhere in the world! So long as they have an internet connection, the recipient can redeem the code and download the game. Cheap postage, maximum Minecraft.

Here’s how you redeem your card. You can buy them in your nearest Walmart, Target, or Best Buy. Apologies if you’re interested in the cards but are based outside the US; we’re working on expanding their availability.

Have fun!

More winners! Thanks to everyone who entered our Facebook cover competition.

We’ve already updated our page with Zelduc’s fine work. A bold art style, some Facebook-themed imagery, and  a flying Creeper were more than enough to take the number one spot.

We’ve also picked out three runners up who we think deserve a mention. If all goes to plan, these should be featured on 57Digital’s Minecraft Explorer Pro app in the near future.

As always, thanks to everyone who entered! We appreciate your dedication and hard work.

Stylish, colourful, blocky. And packed with Mojangstas. Thanks Fran Sánchez!

So friendly, yet so Minecraft. Thanks Antonina Osnos.

 Everyone likes cake and pigs, right? Thanks @Dmumah!

Thanks for all the entries to our scariest screenshot competition! I’ve seen a lot of horrific images over the past few days. Now I’m too petrified to leave the office alone.

We had a lot of pitch-black screens and images of a disconnected Minecraft launcher. They’re both horrifying, but after seeing over over 50 of each, they  kind-of lose their impact. Thanks to everyone who sent them in though. :)

After much deliberation, we’ve settled on this image as the scariest of all. It was extremely hard to choose, and we received thousands of entries, so don’t be disappointed if your entry didn’t make the cut.

Mega-congratulations to Stavrakidis Christos!

We had loads of haunted houses submitted, but Stavrakidis’ attention to detail gave him the edge. We’ll be in touch once your prize is prepared. :)

Choas’ zombie was bloody. Awesome. Big.

Edward’s screenshot had a sense of adventure that many screenshots lacked.

Ethan Harrington’s was the most extreme of all the extreme close-ups.

 I appreciate the simplicity of iext’s image.

Maximum zombie action from Martin Z

…and minimal zombie action from Zach K.

The 0.5.0 release of Minecraft Pocket Edition has been sent in for review and we expect it to be released in mid-November. Here are the changes in 0.5.0.

New features:

• Paintings
• Mushroom farming
• Melons
• Zombie pigmen
• Nether Reactor
• Glowstone

Tweaks:

• Restore hearts when sleeping in bed
• Food now restores more health
• Tweaked the fog to make the game less foggy
• It is now easier to get out a bed

Bug fixes:

• The game could crash when loading a saved game [MCPE-442]
• Animals would sometimes never respawn in a map [MCPE-272]
• Using an item could sometimes attack animals/players when not facing them [MCPE-269]
• Spawning by a bed sometimes resulted in the player being several floors up from it [MCPE-51]
• Seeds would drop below grass block when using the hoe [MCPE-7]
• About 25 additional bug fixes

Complete list of fixed bugs: 0.5.0 fixed issues

// The Minecraft Pocket Edition Team

Since the release of the Pretty Scary Update we’ve been super-busy trying to fix as many reported issues as possible. We’ve now reached the point where we’ve fixed so many that we spend more and more time wondering “haven’t we fixed that already?” and “I wonder if this will break anything else…” In other words, it’s time to look forward to a new official update!

The changes since 1.4.2 is:

• Over 100 issues fixed, full list here: 1.4.3 issue list
• Notable: The missing song “where are we now” is now available, but called “wait”
• Notable: Random falling damage due to lag fixed
• Notable: Falling damage when riding minecarts fixed
• Notable: Enchanted book exploit fixed
• Notable: Slimes have correct collision box
• Notable: Signs no longer lose their text client-side

If nothing serious happens, we intend to release 1.4.3 next Wednesday.

Download the pre-release here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/1_4_3/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/1_4_3/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

Report bugs here:

• Minecraft issue tracker!

// The Minecraft Team

Hey hey!

Today we are releasing a very special Halloween Skin Pack for Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition. It’s special because all proceeds will go charity! The Skin Pack is 160MSP and all 160MSP (about 2 bucks) will go to good causes. 4j Studios, Microsoft and we have chosen different charities where the proceeds will go. We chose the Block by Block project where we are supporting UN Habitat to rebuild different places throughout the world.

It’s been made by a bunch of great developers (hello Rare, I loved your games when I was a kid!) around the world. I’m super happy that we managed to organize this, and I want to say thanks to all the developers that helped make this happen, but also to you. You get awesome skins AND do something great at the same time. And this is the first time the skins got capes! :)

To read more about which charities we have chosen to donate the money to, please go here.

To see all the skins go here

And if you want to go bananas and support this skin pack now, go here :)

The clever guys at 57 Digital have released a new app for iOS that lets you create and rate Minecraft skins from the comfort of your device. Minecraft Skin Studio also lets you upload the skin to Minecraft.net via your profile page. Very handy for the artistic among you, and surprisingly addictive to use.

It’s so easy to use that Lydia managed to download it and create her own custom skin in the time it’s taken me to write this post. And it’s the first she’s ever made!

This is only the third app officially approved by Mojang, so you know it’s top quality stuff that’ll get regularly updated. The other two available for download are Minecraft Explorer Pro (also made by 57 digital) and Minecraft Seeds Pro (made by JN Interactive). They’re also worth checking out if you’re a Minecraft player with an iOS device.

If Minecraft Skin Studio sounds like your cup of tea, download and get creative! Looking forward to seeing your work!

Busy day on the Mojang blog indeed! Don’t forget to check out the other posts for info on the bug tracker, Minecon and our Pretty Scary Screenshot competition!

However, I need to inform you that we’ve uploaded a 1.4.2 version of Minecraft. This version will be released in the launcher tomorrow morning (Central European time zone). What we fixed was,

• Fixed a severe memory leak in the server. Big thanks to Rickard Åberg and John Marzano for helping me locate this problem.
• Corrected rendering of fences and cobblestone walls

Again, for clarity:

• Release date: Thursday October 25

Download the pre-release here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/1_4_2/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/1_4_2/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

Report bugs here:

• Click to report bugs in Minecraft 1.4.2 Pre-release!

// The Minecraft Team

Mojang now has a proper Minecraft Bug Tracker for the community to use! Many of you guys have been asking us for a real bug tracker instead of using the Minecraft Wiki, so I was put on the task of working with Atlassian to make that happen using their fantastic issue tracker, JIRA.

Although this new Minecraft bug tracker will mostly be community organized and run, it will be the official location to report bugs in Minecraft that we’ll be keeping an eye on. Although we’re currently only accepting bug reports for Minecraft 1.4.1 pre-release, we’ll be using this new bug tracker for all future releases of Minecraft. If you’re already familiar with JIRA and want to get right into reporting a bug, go check out the new Minecraft Bug Tracker here!

Otherwise, we have a Help article containing helpful tips and an easy to follow guide on how to write a helpful Minecraft bug report here. Read on for the surprisingly awesome story of how our new Minecraft bug tracker came to be and our relationship with Atlassian developed.

The awesome story…

When we were looking for the perfect service to use for our Minecraft bug tracker, we had to focus on two things: it had to be powerful enough to actually be useful and it had to be relatively easy to use. If you have any experience with issue trackers, you’ll know that it is really difficult to find one that isn’t entirely developer focused and too complicated for non-tech savvy users to use. There are plenty options out there, but they’re either too powerful and complicated or too simple and watered down.

Enter Atlassian’s JIRA, their answer to issue trackers. Having used it extensively and successfully for the Bukkit project, I was fully aware of how powerful JIRA was. As such, it was a clear place for us to start evaluating the options we had and we quickly found out how flexible and customisable, as well as powerful, it was after some tinkering. With JIRA, we feel that we’re able to achieve the important balance we need that provides the community with the right tools to properly manage and report bugs, while continuing to be easy to use.

With that in mind, we sent an email to Atlassian, let them know of our plan to set up a proper Minecraft Bug Tracker and asked if they could help us out. To our surprise, they’re huge fans of Minecraft and immediately offered to help us out, providing us with a free JIRA license and whatever guidance we needed. In fact, they love Minecraft so much, they even used it to showcase their improved JIRA developer’s API for JIRA v5.0 in a cool video. So, it’s thanks to Atlassian for being awesome, supportive and lovers of Minecraft that we’re able to provide the community with a fantastic and powerful Minecraft bug tracker.

How to help out!

Want to know how to write helpful bug reports for us? Just follow this simple guide and you’ll be well on your way! If you’ve ever wanted to help us improve Minecraft, reporting bugs is a great way to do so.

If you want to go a step further, you can also help us out by testing reported bugs and letting us know if you’re able to reproduce them, as well as helping people put together great bug reports on the Minecraft forums so they’re ready to submit them to the bug tracker.

Happy bug hunting!

Some important information if you’re a MINECON attendee…

So you wanna be FAMOUS?

Do you have something interesting you want to talk about at MINECON? Submissions for panelists are open now. We are looking for speakers on all kinds of topics like building, redstone, running a server, Minecrafting with your family, creating videos, basically anything! Submit your panel here: http://bit.ly/TlBvGG. You have until October 31st @ 11pm PST.

Epic Creative Build Contest

Do you dream of meeting the Mojang team? Here’s your chance. Enter the official MINECON build contest. There are only 1,000 spots available, so sign up quickly: http://bit.ly/OVHRQy. It’s an individual two week creative build contest. The top three builds will be showcased on stage at MINECON and the winners will get to meet the Mojangstas.

Register your Babies

Children under seven are free, but we need to get a head-count of how many will be attending. If you are bringing small children with you, please login to manage your ticket, then scroll down and add in the number of children under seven attending with you.

Schedule

MINECON will be open each day from 10-17 (10am-5pm). On Saturday night, the Walt Disney Studios party will start at 8. The Sunday night .party() details haven’t been released yet (don’t forget it is 18+ ONLY).

Get EXCITED

Some things that will make this year’s MINECON incredible:
~ All of you
~ Amazing panels about everything Minecraft you can imagine
~ A killer exhibit hall with hand picked exhibitors
~ An interactive area… nope… I’m not telling you ANYTHING else about this one
~ A private party at Walt Disney Studios. Ride ALL the rides with fellow Minecrafters – Too much awesome to describe

Badge pickup

Badges will be picked up on-site. You will get an email soon that gives you all the specifics of what you need to bring with you.

Emails

We’ll be sending out multiple emails over the next month to keep you updated on what’s happening! Also, the MINECON website will be getting an update soon!

See you soon!
Lydia (@lydiawinters)
Vu (@vubui)
& Tobias (@mollstam)

A day -1 patch! Lovely! No but seriously, there was a big issue causing mobs to suffocate and fall through wooden floors that we really needed to fix. The full list of fixes are…

• Fixed mobs glitching through wooden floors
• Fixed players glitching through Beacons
• Fixed Redstone Repeaters getting stuck in ‘on’ state
• Bats spawn less frequently
• A number of minor font fixes
• Activated the Wither painting
• Fixed wet wolves looking way too scary
• Tweaked naming costs in the Anvil
• Tweaked enchantment points reward for smelting
• Fixed bug that allowed any item to be placed in the armor slots
• Fixed mob spawners spawning too quickly

Since we do these pre-releases mainly to prepare modders and server admins (and not to find and fix bugs), we’ve decided to push the release of 1.4(.1) one day to Thursday, October 25. Again, since I know this is a lot of text to read:

• Release date: Thursday October 25

Download the pre-release here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/1_4_1/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/1_4_1/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

// The Minecraft Team

The Pretty Scary update is almost here! It’ll arrive on Thursday if all goes to plan. I fear it.

Wither and his army of minions, scary zombies that infect you, scary bats, scary witches, and tougher AI will all be included. Then there’s beacons, carrots on sticks, controllable pigs, carrots, potatoes, pumpkin pie, anvils and – perhaps the scariest thing we’ve ever put in Minecraft – FLOWER POTS. Oh man. Expect bug fixes and tweaks aplenty.

As a celebration of the update, we thought we’d run a competition rooted in fear. The winner will get a foam pickaxe signed by every member of the team. That’s probably worth a significant amount of money on eBay, if you’re into that kind of thing (shame on you).

Read on for instructions on how to enter, if you dare.

• Take a scary screenshot in Minecraft. It has to be a screenshot, not a piece of fan art.
• Make it the the scariest screenshot you’ve ever taken. One influenced by fear, impending danger, pain, anxiety; that kind of thing. You can wait for tomorrow’s update if you like, or submit it right away if you already have something in mind.
• Submit the screenshot to the Hej Mojang page before the end of October 30th, CEST.
• Wait for us to judge the submitted screenshots.
• Cross your fingers and hope you win!

That’s it! We look forward to seeing your entries. Have a nice day!

BOO!

Woho, time to get ready for 1.4! This release is the full 1.4, intended to prepare server admins and mod makers. Searge of the Minecraft Coder Pack has already been informed, as usual. This release will be pushed to the public on Wednesday, October 24!

Since the snapshot yesterday we’ve fixed some bugs that were reported, as well as including new sound effects for the Wither, bats, the anvil and finally the Ender Dragon!

Download the pre-release here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/1_4/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/1_4/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you don’t have Minecraft you can download the launcher here: http://www.minecraft.net/download

// The Minecraft Team

Mojang is two-years-old! We’re having a birthday meal in the office this evening but, sadly, there’s not enough table room for you guys. Soz!

To compensate, I asked everyone in the office for their most memorable Mojang moment so far. Then I censored the worst ones and pasted the results below.

It would be great to hear your favourite bits of Mojang history too. Tweet them with the hashtag #mojangmoments so we can find them easily. We’ll show off the best ones at a later date.

Enjoy!

Owen – @bopogamel

 Markus Persson – Creator of Minecraft and 0x10c. Founder of Mojang
“My favorite moment was GDC in 2011. I got to meet a lot of industry people I admire and respect a lot, did a lot of fun interviews, and to top it all off Minecraft won like a godzillion awards, both at the GDCA and at the IGF awards. It was incredibly humbling and incredibly confidence boosting at the same time.”

Henrik Pettersson – 2D Artist on Scrolls
“Without a doubt, MineCon 2011. Seeing all the people and their passion for Minecraft made it so much more real than all the YouTubes, pictures and internet people.”

Carl Manneh – CEO and founder of Mojang
“There are many favorite moments in the two years working with Mojang. One that come to mind is the moment backstage after the closing ceremony at MineCon 2011. A fantastic feeling of “we did it” and excitement for the after party with Deadmau5 at XS. An epic moment indeed.”

Patrick Geuder - Business Developer and Data Warehouse Manager
“Most of Mojang attended Deadmau5′s concert in Stockholm. Since he’s a great fan, we where invited backstage. Uneasy, I wanted to break the ice. I walked over to Deadmau5, pulled up my wallet with pack of fake Creeper tattoos and said: “I see you have a lot of gaming tattoos, would you like this?” He laughed and showed his arm, complete with a real creeper tattoo.”

Jakob Porser - Lead Designer on Scrolls
“Before we got an office, Markus and I worked out of his kitchen. The day we received and set up the computers on his kitchen table was an awesome day. Also, the big award day at GDC 2011 when it rained awards over Minecraft and Markus got blisters on his feet from walking up to the podium again and again and again.”

Jens Bergensten - Minecraft Developer
“For me it’s probably when we celebrated one million sales by going to karaoke and having Jakob sing “Hooked on a Feeling.” Either that, or when we took Notch’s jet to visit Vlambeer in Utrecht, Netherlands. That was awesome!”

Markus “Junkboy” Toivonen – Artist
“My favorite moment is the all-nighter we pulled during our Mojam. We were a bunch of people crammed together in the tiny ‘artist’s room’ at the old office. Fueled by red bull, pizza and Cantonese 80′s pop, we drew and coded while Stockholm froze to ice outside our windows. It was excruciating, but some of the most fun I’ve had working at Mojang.”

Owen Hill – CWO
“I’d been at Mojang for just over a week before Jakob assembled his cardboard box fort. I attempted to infiltrate it to gain information vital to my working day. I failed. Markus was suspicious that Jakob had genuinely lost his mind, but he took a photo and tweeted it anyway.”

Måns Olson – Game developer on Scrolls
“Is ‘all of the moments’ a valid answer? PAX was something else for me. I’d never been to a big games conference before – meeting people in the booth, playing Scrolls and Cobalt with them, and everything surrounding that was fantastic.”

Kristoffer Jelbring – Web Developer
The first Mojam was a great experience for me. I had only started a few weeks earlier, so it was pretty-much the first time I truly got to witness the craziness that is Mojang up close. With little to no planning in advance we pulled off making a nice little game, had loads of fun, and raised a bunch of cash for charity. It was an amazing weekend!

Tobias Möllstam – Force of Good
My first day was pretty cool. 2pp started filming their documentary, Jeb showed of his octopuses that he crunched during the holidays (establishing himself as a Minecraft dev), and later we drank champagne from coffee cups when the IGF nominations were announced. It was also a bit chaotic, Mojang has just moved from one room in that apartment to the entire thing! On that night I realised that Delicato balls and peanut butter makes an excellent dinner.

Lydia Winters – Director of Fun
One of my best moments was interviewing with the guys outside E3 2011. I couldn’t even believe it was happening, that there was a possibility I could work for Mojang. My life was a wreck at the time and suddenly I had the opportunity of a lifetime. I remember needing to google, “where is Sweden?” This was just the start of the most amazing year and a half of my life. Now there are too many incredible memories to ever pick a true favorite.

Vu Bui
One of my favorite Mojang-related memories was on my birthday. We were in the new office, and there was cake (expected) and then singing (unexpected)! The singing was special… I’ve been sung to by groups on my birthday before. But the swedish birthday song, sung by Swedes… was memorable.

Karin Severinson – CFO
One of my favourite moments was when I was hired by Carl a couple of months before I was actually going to start working at Mojang. That made the last months of my maternity leave so great because I knew I was going to work at an awesome place when I went back to work. :)

Johan Bernhardsson – Game developer on Minecraft: Pocket Edition
One of my favorite was the first day of my second week. Almost all the office were at GDC. Karin, Carl and I was sitting in what used to be the old gaming room. The room was incredibly orange. That’s what I associated with Mojang for the first few weeks, the orange company.

Leonard Axelsson – Developer at Mojang
My favorite Mojang memory is from when we went to GDC earlier this year. GDC itself was really sweet but the best part was spending that much time together with all the other Mojang people that went. I feel like I got to know all of them a lot better :)

Jon Kågström – Game Developer
“My first memorable memory was before I worked at Mojang. I found it very enjoyable just to watch the sales counter on minecraft.net keep ticking. While I worked on Minecraft it was very cool to first hand experience the engagement of the community as they are so involved in the game; that was crazy. Another highlight was developing the Scrolls bots and seeing them improve in the weekly office tournaments, that was also a lot of fun.”

Nathan Adams – Game Developer
PAX Prime. Seeing all these families coming to view our panel and our booth – so many kids who love our games, and the parents who support them. It always surprises me to see just how much Minecraft has a positive effect on people, and it’s really awesome to see how it brings them together. A few people later told me how they enjoyed talking to Mojang as people instead of a generic company. I feel like that defines how we work; we’re all individuals with our own strengths and weaknesses. We may be beaten alone, but not together!

Here’s the next snapshot, 12w42b! We are pushing these very rapidly now because we need to get ready for the 1.4 pre-release (which needs to be out before the official release on October 24). Since yesterday’s snapshot we’ve done…

• Falling sand now properly “pops” when falling on non-solid blocks (such as torches)
• The redstone repeater lock mechanism is now slightly more stable / predictable. It’s still not 100% as we want it, but fixing it completely will require bigger changes that we’ve planned for Minecraft 1.5.
• Fixed tooltip width for renamed items
• Added a number of sound events, but the sound effects are not added yet
• Server ping will now tell if the server and client have mismatching protocol versions
• Updated translation files

Download the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w42b/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w42b/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you don’t have Minecraft you can download the launcher here: http://www.minecraft.net/download

// The Minecraft Team

Releasing an early snapshot this week because we need to crunch out the pre-release as soon as possible. This snapshot has the following changes:

• Anvil block has been tweaked (it’s cheaper to create, minor visual changes, and you can repair tools using wood/ingots/diamonds)
• Bats no longer trample crops or trigger pressure plates
• Redstone repeaters can be “locked” (fixed output) by having a powered repeater connected to its left or right side
• Added an option to hide a server’s IP address
• Updated language files
• More bugfixes & tweaks!

Download the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w42a/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w42a/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you don’t have Minecraft you can download the launcher here: http://www.minecraft.net/download

// The Minecraft Team

Hey guys,

As part of our process of better involving the community in the design and development of the Minecraft API, I’ve been working on setting up a Minecraft Developer blog called “Minecraft: Into the Void”.

This blog will be used by the Minecraft team to share developer related articles and information. It will cover things like: extremely technical write-ups that break down new features we’ve added to Minecraft that developers or map makers might find useful. Or articles detailing the use of a new tool we’ve created for the community’s use.

It will also be the central location for me to post Minecraft API related topics, information and announcements so developers don’t have to check several different places for news. Basically, the Minecraft Developer blog will be our space to nerd out unashamedly, do and share what we love, and we are really excited about it.

If you’re a developer and think this might interest you, come check it out:
Minecraft: Into the Void – the Minecraft Developers blog

The launch of this blog and the Minecraft API proposal system are just the beginnings of my work to create an official Minecraft developers community and ecosystem (as you might have guessed from the new dev.minecraft.net subdomain). I am excited to work with the many developers in our awesome community and for what the future has in store!

// EvilSeph, on behalf of the Minecraft Team

More great Xbox news! The very anticipated 1.8.2+ update is now rolling out through all your xboxes. Make sure you are connected to the internet with your box to get the latest update (also, stay in school kids).

The update is huge so read it after the jump :)

Creative Mode
Superflat world type
Hunger
NPC Villages, Abandoned Mineshafts, Strongholds and Ravines
12 Music Discs
New Combat Mechanics

• Chargeable bows
• Critical hits
• Sprinting
• Players can parry with a sword

Ability to change the name of your world save
Chain Armor
Pressure Plates can now be placed on fences
New mobs

• Endermen
• Cave spiders
• Silverfish

New Food Items

• Apples
• Raw Chicken
• Cooked Chicken
• Raw Beef
• Steak
• Melons
• Melon seeds
• Rotten Flesh

Cobwebs
Fence Gate
Iron bars
Glass pane
Stone Brick
Stone Brick Stairs
Stone Brick Slabs
Brick Stairs
Brick Slabs
Pumpkin Seed
Vines
Pumpkins and Melons grow from stems much faster, and do not require farmland around the stem to grow on
Sponges(Creative only)
New biome
Swamp biome
Ocean biome
Ocean floor now consists of Clay, sand and dirt, this makes clay easier to find
Mountain biome
River
Rivers flow through/in between biomes
Passive mobs will randomly flee if attacked by the player or other mobs (such as Cows)
Pig has 3D snout.
Sugar Cane can now be placed on sand
Chest has opening and closing animation
User-placed leaf blocks no longer decay
Skeletons hold full size bow
Shears can now collect Tall Grass and Vines
Exclusive Superflat option for the Nether
Option to turn clouds off
Large changes to Xbox 360 tutorial mode
Bonus chest world option
Option to turn PVP off
Option to turn fire spread off
Option to make TNT not detonate
Option to trust players (to op players)

Bug fixes:
Fix for duplication glitch.
Fix for aspect ratio of things in hand when in splitscreen mode.
Fix for issue with player data not saving (player starting world with no items they had when they saved)
Fix for redstone tiles burning out when they shouldn’t.
Fixed issue with Minecart with Furnace not being able to move another Minecart.
Fixed particle code for flipped 3rd person view.

Do you recognize all the characters? :)

This awesome skin pack will be released on Friday and, just like the previous ones, will cost 160MS points (that’s just 2 dollars or 0.5L of sparkling water here in Sweden). We got some help from Army of Trolls to do these. You should check out his other awesome work too.

Here you can see all of the other awesome skins in Pack 3: http://www.oxm.co.uk/46646/minecraft-xbox-360-skin-pack-3-new-screenshots-revealed/

Also the next update for MC XBOX WILL BE OUT REALLY REALLY SOOON!

Hey Guys,

It’s been awhile. Things here at Mojang have been crazy.

We are about to hit 5 MILLION fans on Facebook. We were really excited when we heard the news!

Cover photo Contest

In honor of this awesomeness, we need a new FB cover photo.

This time the theme is Minecraft Celebration, since not only are we excited about 5 MILLION Facebook fans but MINECON is also coming up.

Here’s what you need to do to submit:

- Create something amazingly Minecraft Celebration.
- Go to the Hej Mojang Submission page.
- On the right hand side click the ‘Submit Photo’ link.
- Photo MUST be 851 pixels by 315 pixels (the cover photo dimensions)
- Make sure to include your email address and name.
- In the text area write what name you would like to be displayed on the artwork if yours is chosen. You can include one link to either your twitter account, youtube, FB, etc.
- You have until Wednesday, October 17th at 11pm PST.

One winner will be chosen as the new FB cover photo. BUT multiple pieces will be added to official Minecraft Explorer Pro App.

MINECON Panel Submissions

Are you coming to MINECON Paris? If the answer is yes, why not submit to be a panelist. Panels can be about anything Minecraft, like building, redstone, mods, families playing together, server hosting, video making, etc or be creative and think of something a bit outside the box. Submit your idea with a 60 second video and you could be soaking up the spotlight on a stage at MINECON. You need to have a MINECON ticket to submit.

You have until Sunday, October 28th at 11pm PST.

Submit your panel HERE.

The Weekly Chunk

As you know the Weekly Chunk has been happening off and on for a little while. From now on we will be posting on Thursdays each week. By we, I’m talking about me (Lydia Winters) and our awesome new Chief Word Officer, Owen Hill. Starting at the end of the year/beginning of 2013, the Weekly Chunk will become a video series. Get excited!

Talk to you next Thursday!

- Lydia

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube

The Pretty Scary Update is almost upon us, with just two weeks until our target release date (October 24th). Here is this weeks changelog:

• Added a new Anvil block for repairing, merging & naming items
• Added an option for cape-owners to hide their capes ingame
• Effects given by the Beacon will be less intrusive on the screen
• Level-up sound now only plays every 5 levels
• More bugfixes & tweaks!

Download the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w41b/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w41b/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you don’t have Minecraft you can download the launcher here: http://www.minecraft.net/download

// The Minecraft Team

UPDATE: The links above have been updated to version 12w41b. In this extra snapshot:

• Fixed anvils repairing themselves when falling
• Fixed a few crashes in multiplayer when renaming items
• Fixed /kill command not working and screenshot message not showing
• More smaller bugfixes and tweaks!

We’re now fully into the “prepare for release” mode, so we’ve almost only worked on bug fixing and performance. We’ve decided to aim for October 24 for the full Pretty Scary Update. Here’s this week’s changelog:

• Minor terrain additions for the witch
• Flatworld configuration now allows you to generate trees, strongholds etc
• A number of new NBT tags for items (intended for custom map makers)
• The pick block action now works on items
• Pressing the 1-9 hotkeys while hovering over an item will put that item into the inventory bar
• The left-click action will no longer open doors, pull levers, push buttons or open trapdoors. Use the right mouse button!
• Firespread has been slightly nerfed again to prevent infinitely spreading fires
• More bugfixes & tweaks!

Download the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w40b/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w40b/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you don’t have Minecraft you can download the launcher here: http://www.minecraft.net/download

// The Minecraft Team

UPDATE: The links above have been updated to version 12w40b. In this extra snapshot:

• Fixed the glitchy block popping bug
• Fixed beacon rendering
• Fixed a crash related to map items in strongholds

Please note that the smooth lightning is a bit borken on stairs/slabs. But we are working on it!

So here is the 12w39a changelog:

• Lighting system overhauled.
• Lots of blocks interact correctly with lighting now (stairs, slabs)
• Few sound tweaks
• Fixed witch being white for some
• More bugfixes & slight tweaks!

Download the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w39a/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w39a/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you don’t have Minecraft you can download the launcher here: http://www.minecraft.net/download

// The Minecraft Team

So you’ve been trying to figure out how to get to Minecon. Here’s another chance. We are in the FINAL few days of the Threadless Minecraft challenge. Create a winning shirt design and you will be on your way to Disneyland for a weekend you won’t soon forget, not too mention your pockets will be stuffed with $3,000.

Time is running out. Submit yours now!

So maybe you aren’t the artistic type that’s ok too.

Win $200 Threadless gift code by creating a Threadless design within the game. Check it out.

Last but not least, we NEED you.

There are tons of submissions and we need your help choosing the top designs. Score the designs based on what you would wear. Which one would you want printed?

Now get to crafting!

Here is a progress update on what has been going on with the Xbox version of Minecraft. As soon as we have a release date for this update I will let you know :) You can follow @Kappische on twitter or @4JStudios for official tweets about the Xbox version.

There are a lot of stuff to show so you can click around and see what has been happening :)

New Mobs video -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xztzrn05MOE&feature=plcp

New Food video -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9D37APSQDs&feature=plcp

New Structures video -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIrluPIfFgY&feature=plcp

New Food

http://yfrog.com/mnpkjyrzj

http://yfrog.com/h4o4mblj

http://yfrog.com/nxo5snxnj

Village

http://yfrog.com/kj5o2esj

Stronghold

http://yfrog.com/klz6wydj

Ravine

http://yfrog.com/objz3ecj

Abandoned Mineshaft

http://twitter.yfrog.com/oc76hfij

River

http://yfrog.com/hsl1zwtmj

Stone Bricks

http://yfrog.com/escmwsuj

New chest

http://yfrog.com/obpi7skj

Creative Menu

http://yfrog.com/est60txj

http://yfrog.com/h2ogoclj

http://yfrog.com/obgaukaj

http://yfrog.com/oec4tzuqj

http://yfrog.com/gyh3mivj

Enjoy :D

I’m really proud to tell you about something amazing!

The Voxel Box was invited to be part of The New York Film Festival’s Convergence event. They’ll be representing the gaming community at the event with their amazing panel.

The incredible team of KupoKupo and Ridgedog have been working together for almost two years to create truly unique experiences within Minecraft. They create incredible adventure maps and astound everyone with what they come up with together.

On Saturday, September 29th @ 2:30pm, they will be joined by Frank Rose to talk about Creative Storytelling within Minecraft!

If you are in the New York City area, grab a ticket to go see these two! You can purchase an inexpensive pass just to see their panel or go for the whole event.

If I was ANYWHERE near New York, I would be there in a heartbeat.

Congratulations Kupo and Ridgedog, you both are really making the Minecraft community proud!

Have a great weekend!

Lydia

P.S. Check back next week for… PAX art winners, a new FB cover photo contest, and much more!

Because the ‘say’ command didn’t work we decided to do a 12w38b snapshot:

• /say command works again
• Updated sound engine and added minecart sound effects
• Various other sound effect changes
• A few tweaks to the witch mob

Download the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w38b/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w38b/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you don’t have Minecraft you can download the launcher here: http://www.minecraft.net/download

// The Minecraft Team

Still working towards the Pretty Scary Update. We’re reaching the end of the number of features we want, and will from now on start focusing on polishing up a 1.4 release. Here’s the 12w38a changelog:

• Updated and added new sounds by C418
• Added a neutral mob
• Added a hostile mob (doesn’t spawn yet)
• Command block target parameters have been upgraded, check here for details: https://gist.github.com/3736487
• Beacon artwork has changed
• Wood trunk blocks are now rotated differently. Instead of using the player’s position, it will rotate based on the face it is placed upon. This is mainly a test, so feedback is welcomed, but for me personally this way is a bit easier.

Download the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w38a/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w38a/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you don’t have Minecraft you can download the launcher here: http://www.minecraft.net/download

// The Minecraft Team

Get your tickets here!

I don’t have much to say this week, so here’s just the brief 12w37a changelog:

• Tweaks to the Wither
• Carrots are now carrot, and added new food item
• Tweaks to a couple of item sprites
• Leather armor now has a non-dyed layer
• Superflat customization options
• Pigs are now able to jump when players ride on them
• Added /clear command to empty the inventory
• Evil mobs are now a little bit more fearless in hard difficulty
• Various bug fixes

Download the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w37a/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w37a/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you don’t have Minecraft you can download the launcher here: http://www.minecraft.net/download

// The Minecraft Team

I spoke with Paddy at 4J Studios (the Scottish people helping us developing the xbox version) and he sent me some fresh screenshots from the latest build of Minecraft for the Xbox. He also sent me the latest update of the new Avatar items. Hhahahahhahah it is hilarious =D

We are teaming up with Threadless, that make really awesome shirts, and we need your help to create and find the most beautiful designs ever created. Craft a t-shirt design inspired by Minecraft!

You can win amazing prizes. Such as a trip to Minecon Paris!!

Go to http://www.threadless.com/minecraft to participate and read all about it :)

Hey hey! We are currently working to get Minecraft 1.4 out around Halloween – the Pretty Scary Update! Until then, have the (near-)weekly snapshot, 12w36a:

• A new scary decoration block
• The “secret” from previous snapshots is now spawnable
• A new mob variant in the Nether
• Minor changes to the leather dyeing (the colors will attempt to maintain intensity and not dilute as much)
• The “work in progress block” is now called “Beacon” and can be crafted
• Carrot on a stick!
• Bug fixes

Download the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w36a/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w36a/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you don’t have Minecraft you can download the launcher here: http://www.minecraft.net/download

// The Minecraft Team

The update is finally here! You can read the full release notes after the jump. It is a huge list of new/tweaked stuff so I didnt want to scare you away with all the stuff! Also. Chests!!!

I hope you will enjoy the new update. We had a lot of fun developing it for you. Thanks for all the tweets and mail!

Go grab now on iOS and Android :)

It may take some time to propagate.

// The Minecraft — Pocket Edition Team

New features:

• Chests to store items
• Beds to skip night and setting your spawn point
• Creepers!
• TNT, and flint and steel to ignite
• Food items added: apples, bread, mushroom soup, beef, chicken and pork
• Added recipes: wool from string, green wool and stone bricks
• Added a Peaceful Mode option for survival mode without monsters
• Added wheat, seeds and hoe
• Added moss stone, redstone ore and white wool to creative inventory
• Added trap door
• Red dye can be obtained by cooking red mushroom
• Added several more dyes (combined from primary dyes)
• Zombies now drop feathers

Tweaks:

• Made the day longer
• Limited the total number of a given monster type
• When using an item, the player’s movement speed is decreased

Bug fixes:

• Monsters could spawn indoors
• Added fall damage for clients
• Players could knock each other far away
• Incorrect bow rendering in 3rd person view
• Missing particles after critical arrows
• Stairs reverted back to their basic blocks when destroyed
• Charging the bow could destroy certain blocks (flowers, torches), or interact with blocks
• The game crashed if player was killed while having the bow charged
• Connecting players could die in creative mode
• Dark leaves sometimes had workbench texture
• Wrong crafting table size for Xperia Play
• Bow didn’t take damage when used
• Non-dark brown tree trunks are now added back to the game (you may need to start a new world as host)
• Destroying a door could leave half a door
• Missing spider death sound on iOS

Download on iOS and Android :)

Är det rätt streck i titeln Tobbe?

You may rembember our project Mina Kvarter (My Blocks) that we’re doing together with Svensk Byggtjänst (Swedish Building Services). Mina Kvarter aims to support the involvement of people to participate in the reconstruction process of their own neighborhoods. Using Minecraft, our community has helped reconstruct the areas in subject and citizens are invited to enter the Minecraft servers and modify their own neighborhood. It has proven to be a great way to visualize urban planning ideas without necessarily having architectural training. The ideas presented by the citizens lay as a ground for political decisions. Mina Kvarter has been a great success and it’s spreading into more areas in Sweden. It has also been recognized internationally as a new way to do urban development planning. Recently, the UN found out about what we are doing and we got together to talk.

Introducing Block by Block

Today we’re extremely excited to announce a new collaboration with UN Habitat called ‘Block by Block‘.  Just like the Swedish predecessor, “Block by Block” aims to involve youth in the planning process in urban areas by giving them the opportunity to show planners and decision makers how they would like to see their cities in the future.  Minecraft has turned out to be the perfect tool to facilitate this process. The three-year partnership will support UN-Habitat’s Sustainable Urban Development Network to upgrade 300 public spaces by 2016. The first pilot project in Kibera one of Nairobi’s informal settlements is already in the planning phase. Below is a picture of the site and the Minecraft version of the same built by epic Minecraft builder group FyreUK. (click pic to enlarge)

Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya, is the pilot project. This is the location built in Minecraft by epic construction group FyreUK (Click to view larger)

Mojang will be the main financial sponsor for Block by Block and we will work closely with the UN to help reach the goals set up. Lydia is in Naples today attending the World Urban Forum, announcing Block by Block together with UN Habitat. Lydia will also work with our fantastic Minecraft community to support the project in various ways. We are working on a ‘Block by Block’ web site where everyone will be able to follow what’s going on.

Things don’t always go as planned, and sometimes we miss deadlines. It isn’t because we’re not trying hard enough, and definitely doesn’t mean we don’t care.

Me, junkboy, and Lydia have been working really hard the past week and I’m happy to tell you that the registration site is pretty much done. Right now we’re  waiting on the hotel registration site from Disney. We need to release everything at the same time so each person who is coming to MineCon will know they have everything they need. We thought the extra time would be enough but it turns out that it wasn’t.

If you head over to the MineCon site right now, you’ll see a countdown set for 10h—and that’s right, it isn’t counting. When everything’s more in an ordered fashion I’ll start the clock, so you at least have some way of being able to prepare.

We decided to do a ‘b’ version of this week’s snapshot due to a number of bugs…

• Fixed item frame crashes
• Fixed nether portal stuff
• Changed recipes for buttons
• Minor armor gfx changes
• Tweaked the “hidden feature” (still not ready for release)

Download the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w34b/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w34b/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

// The Minecraft Team

Hey Guys,

Get ready… this week is a CRAZY one.

PAX Fan Art Contest

We need some amazing pieces of artwork for a special PAX Project.

Here’s the specifics:

• It can be about Minecraft, Scrolls, Cobalt, or the Mojang Team.
• Be original. We are looking for amazing things!
• Must be 8×10″ 300dpi (vertical or horizontal will be accepted)
• Submit to HejMojang.
• Artwork will be used in something epic for PAX. Each winner will get a picture of a Mojangsta holding their artwork emailed to them! They will also all be featured on the blog after PAX.
• You have until Tuesday, August 28th @ 1pm PST.
• We are NOT looking for IN GAME artwork.

*We will be choosing a few submissions from each category! By submitting your artwork you are giving us permission to show it online and at PAX.

Speaking of PAX

Our booth is on the 6th floor, spot 6201. I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT OUR BOOTH. If you are at PAX, you cannot miss it. Here’s the map so you don’t get lost!

We will be having a pane at PAX! After Notch: The New Minecraft Team will be on Saturday at 4:30pm in the Kraken theater – more information here. For those of you who can’t make it Twitch.tv will be livestreaming our session!

PAX Volunteers

We’re looking for some helpful volunteers to work with us at our booth at PAX Prime in Seattle, August 31st to September 2nd. You must already have a PAX badge, and be over 18 years old.

If you’re interested, please click here and give us some information about yourself. See you at PAX!

*Volunteers will get specialness… just saying.

So you want to know about Minecon…

Later this afternoon the official site will be online! Registration won’t start until next week, but this will give you all the information you’ve been waiting for and the EXACT time registration starts!

Follow @MojangTeam on twitter for all the latest information!

Minecraft Snapshot 12w34a

The recent two weeks Dinnerbone and I (jeb_) have worked a lot on new features, both our own and suggestions from the community. Before you ask, the API that will allow you to do your own features is waiting for a large restructuring of the render engine to be completed. I’ll write more about this in a future blog post.

So while you wait for that, here are the changes in this week’s snapshot:

• Added item frames
• Added cobblestone walls (yes, mossy too)
• Maps now align to a grid, making it easier to create adjacent maps. Maps can also be cloned
• Stairs now auto-arrange into corners. This is a test and may change based on feedback
• Mobs can travel through portals
• Leather clothes can be dyed
• Removed the “wip block” from the creative menu
• Added two new crops and associated items
• F3+P will toggle the auto-pause when the window loses focus (it’s for debugging, mainly)
• F3+H will toggle detailed item descriptions (also for debugging)
• Added arrow-sensitive wooden buttons
• Trapdoors can be placed in top-most position (based on cross-hair aim)

Download the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w34a/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w34a/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

// The Minecraft Team

Most of the team will be out next week, so there won’t be a snapshot or Weekly Chunk.

See some of you very soon!

- Lydia

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Hey
We have now submitted the 0.4.0 update for Minecraft Pocket Edition and we expect it to be released in mid-September. When we get a specific date, we’ll of course tell you guys.

New features:

• Chests to store items
• Beds to skip night and setting your spawn point
• Creepers!
• TNT, and flint and steel to ignite
• Food items added: apples, bread, mushroom soup, beef, chicken and pork
• Added recipes: wool from string, green wool and stone bricks
• Added a Peaceful Mode option for survival mode without monsters
• Added wheat, seeds and hoe
• Added moss stone, redstone ore and white wool to creative inventory
• Added trap door
• Red dye can be obtained by cooking red mushroom
• Added several more dyes (combined from primary dyes)
• Zombies now drop feathers

Tweaks:

• Made the day longer
• Limited the total number of a given monster type
• When using an item, the player’s movement speed is decreased

Bug fixes:

• Monsters could spawn indoors
• Added fall damage for clients
• Players could knock each other far away
• Incorrect bow rendering in 3rd person view
• Missing particles after critical arrows
• Stairs reverted back to their basic blocks when destroyed
• Charging the bow could destroy certain blocks (flowers, torches), or interact with blocks
• The game crashed if player was killed while having the bow charged
• Connecting players could die in creative mode
• Dark leaves sometimes had workbench texture
• Wrong crafting table size for Xperia Play
• Bow didn’t take damage when used
• Non-dark brown tree trunks are now added back to the game (you may need to start a new world as host)
• Destroying a door could leave half a door
• Missing spider death sound on iOS

Now it’s back to working on the next version.

//  The Minecraft Pocket Edition Team

Hello

Today we’ve updated Minecraft to version 1.3.2, as we said we would. This is a patch update that mainly includes fixes for important bugs. To avoid feedback confusion for us we’ve decided to skip the snapshot this week. Snapshots will be back next week!

Also, Cobalt is updated again! Now to version v108-alpha. Get it through the launcher or download the installer at www.PlayCobalt.com. The changes in v108a are:

Alterations:

• Burners now do less damage on the tip
• Predator movement and ai has been improved
• You can now initiate an air roll while using jet shoes, and as long as you hold the rolling button you will keep spinning even with the jet shoes spraying around you.
• Tweaked screen shake
• Tweaked air roll animation

Bug-Fixes:

• Minimal mode and shaders turned off now works again.
• Fixed tile browser camera being to low initially
• Fixed respawning bug in tutorial
• Fixed crash related to explosionSequence used in safest gate.
• Optimized shader preparations for actor and objects
• Optimized actor limb explosions which should generate less performance intensive debris.
• Fixed second shop in safe house
• Forgot to up the shied damage factor on Plasma weapons when i reduced their damage, they are now good at shield as they are supposed to, but they still dont insta-remove yellow shields.
• Research facility now restocks shops.
• Fixed pathfinder trying to path through locked doors
• Fixed a crash bug related to alarm actors rig rendering.
• Added AI so that the metalfaces dont jump-kick while trying to roll-deflect

… or check the update on Oxeye’s blog: http://www.oxeyegames.com/cobalt-v108-alpha-change-log/#more-1023

Cheers!

Today Oxeye are updating Cobalt to version 107-ALPHA, and we’re pre-releasing Minecraft 1.3.2!

Cobalt 107-ALPHA has a long list of changes:

• Gas flames are not non-instant in the extension of the flame which makes them work better with bullet time.
• Button and Sensor triggers can now require both an id, or just an actor or item type, or both.
• Shield belt logic has been reworked. It now takes equal damage from all direction and instead of just deflecting all damage less than 1, it now has a fast recharching buffer which all weapons
• damage, and when the buffer runs out, the panic charge is issued giving a temporary high damage resistance.
• Beam gun ammo drain is less exponential at higher powers.
• Plasma weapons used to insta-gib shield wearing characters due to a bug, now the yellow shield correctly reports the damage done to the plasma bullet reducing its energy by the correct amount.
• Plasma weapons do less damage and more heat damage, meaning only hurting enemies will leave them with more relative health if left to cool off. (used to be equal amounts which rarely contributed to any strategy)
• when starting a new map directly from an old one through menu, teams and players are remembered as good as possible.
• 3 different activate_physics actions have now been merged to 1, and added the “grouped” boolean that will activate them all and glue them together.
• The double jump has been changed. It is now a “kick” and you can perform the kick once per jump, but it gets stronger if you charge it up by running. You can now double jump (kick), while rolling which will give you a speed boost in the direction you are facing in the roll.
• … and 31 more changes on Oxeye’s blog: http://www.oxeyegames.com/cobalt-v107-alpha-change-log/

Bug fixes:

• Split screen now plays sounds correctly for both views
• Localization files are now loaded from the my documents location too.
• Jet shoes had acquired a strange bug in some version which made jumping with it sometimes jerky (is now smoother)
• fixed the difference between placing snap and drag move snap.
• Menu now howevers on where it was left after going to menu instead of being misaligned by the “return to game”
• Hints for keyboard keys has been extended, now includes numpad keys and some other missing buttons.
• Teleporting 2 people no longers gets them stuck in perpetual teleportation
• Scoping long range weapons could make the aimer fall off the camera bounds, fixed!
• … and 8 more bug fixes on Oxeye’s blog: http://www.oxeyegames.com/cobalt-v107-alpha-change-log/

Cobalt is available for Windows only (but Mac and Linux are in the works). You can download and check the non-playable demonstration on www.PlayCobalt.com, or pre-order the game to get access to the alpha development versions.

You can follow Cobalt’s development on twitter:

• @OxeyeGames (shared account)
• @vraket (lead developer)
• @Kinten (artist, level design)
• @_tomcc (Mac developer)
• @Frall_ (level design)

Minecraft update 1.3.2 is a bug-fix update that aims to fix the following:

• Fixed the falling-out-of-Nether bug
• Fixed the random-suffocation-damage bug
• Various uncommon crash bugs

Get the pre-release here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/1_3_2/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/1_3_2/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

The update will be put live on Thursday, August 16. This pre-release is mainly intended to prepare server admins and mod makers. If you are running a server, this 1.3.2 release is compatible with 1.3.1 clients, so you can update your server when-ever.

If you haven’t downloaded Minecraft you can grab it here: www.minecraft.net/download

// The Minecraft Team

Hey Guys!

First of all, one quick change. The Weekly Chunk will now happen on Thursdays WITH the Weekly Snapshot!

In case you missed it, we announced MINECON 2012′s location. Check our YouTube channel for the details. Registration will open in the next week or two.

This week we are very excited to announce our second partnered Minecraft app – meaning community members made it and it was so amazing we wanted to make it an official Minecraft app.

Seeds – For Minecraft (Minecraft Seeds)

Two brothers, Nahir and Jean created this app for all things Minecraft seeds. Seeds are curated and rated. You will even see photos and descriptions of each seed. Not only can you check out seeds in the PC version, but there are also ratings and suggestions for seeds on the Pocket Edition and Xbox version!

If you’re looking for something specific, such as mushroom biomes or strongholds, you can check that off and see those specific seeds.

For $0.99 you will never need to try and figure out a good seed again!

It’s also available on the Kindle Fire and for Android.

This is a REALLY great app! Check it out now!

The Weekly Snapshot

We are currently working on two different tasks: first to patch 1.3.1 to fix the most serious bugs, and secondly on 1.4. The patch will be released as 1.3.2, and will not include any new features. This snapshot (12w32a), however, is a part of our 1.4 development, so it has some new features (confusing, eh?):

• Villagers will now react positively on new trades, and negatively if you hurt them
• Villagers will not remove trades, but trading something else may be required to renew the old ones
• Zombies and Skeletons have new equipment, depending on difficulty
• There’s a new kind of Zombie, too
• Added the “Command Block” intended for adventure maps. It’s not craftable and not in the menu, but its id is 137
• A suprise block! This block is still work in progress, but will get a crafting recipe later on

Get the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w32a/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w32a/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you havent downloaded Minecraft you can grab it here: www.minecraft.net/download

// The Minecraft Team

Make sure to check back next Thursday as we will be having more creative contests!

~Lydia

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Finally, Minecraft Pocket Edition 0.3.3 has been released and is available through App Store and Google Play.

New features:
Added skeletons and spiders.
Added bow and arrow.
Added bone meal and flint.
Mobs can drop items.
Torches can now be placed on fences.

Tweaks:
Item decay time extended to 5 minutes.
Boosted brightness slightly.
Item slots has been expanded to a minimum of 6 slots (minus one for inventory).

Bug fixes:
Crash bug with furnace
Removed fire (except on mobs in sunlight), only tested for newly started maps.
A bug where cactus and door placed next to each other would remove the bottom door block (and top one if a 2 level cactus).
Removed particles from spawning when you hit the edges of the world.
Stairs now block light.
A bug where fence gate would not appear in the user’s hand but in the world.
When a user sood on a slab and created another one, the user simply fell through.
You can no longer get unlimited diamonds, gold and iron by breaking apart blocks of them and building together as a new block.
Swords now take damage from hitting mobs.
Golden tools are no longer tougher than wooden tools.
The rear end texture where upside down on some animals.
The D-pad on ipad no longer intersects with the item slots.
Users can no longer place sugar cane in water.
Dark green leaves have correct textures when cut by shear.
Dandelion “egg” fixed.
Blocks placed on snow aren’t duplicated in multiplayer.

Have fun!

The moment you’ve been waiting for….

Official registration for tickets and hotel rooms will open in the next two weeks!

We have an AMAZING hotel rate!

More details coming soon!!!!!

Last week I issued a challenge to all of you. I was BLOWN away with the huge response. Hundreds and hundreds of videos.

Here’s a compilation of 8 of my favorites and a link to the Winning Video!

Thank you to EVERYONE who took the time to create something. I cannot tell you how impressed I was with everything I saw.

As a side note: Since the contest specified 30 second videos, videos only qualified if they were 32 seconds total or under (since sometimes YouTube adds a second or two).

Okay, now get back to enjoying Minecraft 1.3! Check out the changelog in the launcher for all the details.

Have a great week!

<3 Lydia

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Hey Guys,

Today is an awesome day! It’s the 1.3 Prerelease!!!!

Check out the video contest we are doing and create your own Minecraft 1.3 commercial.
Yours could be featured on the Mojang YouTube channel!

Can’t wait to see the amazingness you create!

It’s finally time for Minecraft 1.3! As the norm is these days, we prepare the community and server providers with a prerelease. The official release date is August 1, so that’s when everybody will get the update in the launcher.

Here’s a brief collection of all the changes made since Minecraft 1.2.5:

• The game now runs an internal server in single-player mode
• The single-player server can be shared on LAN, with LAN server detection
• Made it possible to use client-side commands by enabling cheats (this is defaulted as disabled for old worlds)
• Added an optional “bonus chest” to get started quicker
• It’s now possible to trade with villagers. Added emeralds as a currency
• You gain enchantment orbs from other tasks than just destroying monsters. Max enchantment level has been decreased to 30
• Servers can automatically suggest and distribute texture packs
• Added new world map elements (does not need a new map, but they’ll only appear in new areas)
• Added cocoa beans
• Added an Ender chest
• Added tripwire
• Wooden logs can be placed sideways
• More detailed change log here: http://www.reddit.com/r/edstonehelper/comments/p6lol/planned_for_the_next_update/

Get the prerelease here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/1_3_1/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/1_3_1/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you havent downloaded Minecraft you can grab it here: www.minecraft.net/download

Please note that the minecraft.jar doesn’t need to be extracted or unpacked in any way, you simply replace the minecraft.jar file that is located in the “.minecraft/bin” folder.

Have a great week!

-Lydia (with some help from Jeb)

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UPDATE: The release has been updated to 1.3.1 instead of just 1.3, because the obfuscation was wrong and made life (more) difficult for modders. We also fixed a couple of other minor issues. Normal users don’t need to bother to download again, the patch doesn’t contain any new features, and this 1.3.1 build will be pushed on Wednesday.

I’ll be posting tomorrow instead because there’s an exciting contest that will go with the Weekly Snapshot!!! Check back tomorrow :)

We found one serious bug yesterday and also did two game-play changes, so we need to do another snapshot before we can pre-release 1.3.

• Corrected Ender Dragon Egg teleportation
• Added rotatable log blocks
• Strongly decreased the amount of enchantment orbs you get from furnaces

Get the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w30e/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w30e/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you havent downloaded Minecraft you can grab it here: www.minecraft.net/download

Please note that the snapshot jar doesn’t need to be extracted or unpacked in any way, you simply replace the minecraft.jar file that is located in the “.minecraft/bin” folder.

// The Minecraft Team

UPDATE: Updated snapshot to 12w30e because cocoa plants were not placeable on sideways jungle logs, and the survival inventory in creative mode was completely messed up.

Final polishing before the pre-release!

• Fixed piston block animation bug
• Fixed rain particles in certain biomes
• Fixes for a few uncommon crashes
• Fixes for minor text bugs, and portal placement

Get the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w30c/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w30c/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you havent downloaded Minecraft you can grab it here: www.minecraft.net/download

Please note that the snapshot jar doesn’t need to be extracted or unpacked in any way, you simply replace the minecraft.jar file that is located in the “.minecraft/bin” folder.

// The Minecraft Team

We’re getting really close to the 1.3 release now, and need to check that everything runs as expected. The plan is to release one or two snapshots, and then the 1.3 pre-release by Wednesday or Thursday. The pre-release is intended to be identical to the official release next week, in order to give modmakers and server admins a week’s head start. That’s why we need to do a snapshot first, since we can’t do changes to the update after the pre-release is out.

This snapshot consists of all the bugfixes that Nathan (@dinnerbone) and Eric (@_grum) have been working on the last two weeks. Get it here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w30b/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w30b/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you havent downloaded Minecraft you can grab it here: www.minecraft.net/download

Please note that the snapshot jar doesn’t need to be extracted or unpacked in any way, you simply replace the minecraft.jar file that is located in the “.minecraft/bin” folder.

// The Minecraft Team

UPDATE: There was a bug that prevented people from interacting with blocks (right-clicking) which has been fixed. We also fixed a null pointer exception. The links above have been updated to point to the new version (12w30b).

Hi Guys,

First of all, this week I made a silly little video to show off one of the new Minecraft products!

Check out the creeper hoodie here!

Make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel to get all the latest videos first!

A few exciting announcements this week:

1) We are just about finalized with the MineCon contract. We have an announcement video all ready for you. It will go up within a week and you’ll find out the location and month! Then registration will go live within the next two weeks (hopefully).

2) Super excited to announce that we applied and were accepted to do our own PAX Prime Panel. After Notch: The New Minecraft Team will feature Jens and the Bukkit team talking about what’s happened with Minecraft since Jens became the lead developer and where they see things going from here. As soon as we get confirmation of the date/time we will let you know. The AWESOME thing is the panel will be live-streamed too! So ALL of you can watch it. Also our booth is going to be AMAZING!!!

3) Minecraft Pocket Edition got an update!

Minor release 3.2 (Furnaces – No more unlimited items)
- Furnaces! Every available block and item can now be gathered, crafted or smelted into.
- Grow trees! Saplings dropped when harvesting leaf with Shears.
- More tiles such as thin glass, and half blocks in different material.
- Gold, diamond and iron ore can now be gathered (smelt them for stronger tools)!
- Fixes: less flickering/Z-fighting on some devices, mobs have correct health, fixed rendering of fence gates and half blocks in hand.

ATTENTION!
Known bug – game crashes when clicking on empty furnace inventory list

Have a great Wednesday!

Lydia

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Hi Guys,

We are aware of the security issues (people using others’ usernames NOT any leak of passwords or personal information) involved with the Minecraft authorization servers and are currently working to fix it.

Right now the authorization servers have been taken offline and will be down until further notice. The Mojangstas are working hard to make sure we get everything back to perfect working order.

We’ll keep you updated as we have a more clear timeline. We really are sorry about this and are working as fast as we can!

Happy Sunday :)

UPDATE: Woohoo! Things are back up and running perfectly! Thank you all for being patient while things were fixed. Also major props to Grum, Dinnerbone, and Leo who were out of bed and in to action in the blink of an eye!

Boom! New update is live for the xbox and it is pretty slick! To get the update just fire up the game (with your box connected to the net of course!) and it will ask you to download it :D

If you havent tried it out you can grab it here: http://bit.ly/MinecraftXbox

You can find the whole change list for 360 below!

About Installing Snapshots (for PC only)

I have heard that people get some bugs in the snapshots that we put up on the blog and we think it may have to do with people “installing” it incorrectly. What you should do is just overwrite the whole minecraft.jar file with the snapshot one. To download a snapshot right click on the link  and choose “save as”. To find the minecraft.jar file, fire up the launcher and hit Options. There you find the path to your minecraft-folder.

Here is the full changelist for latest Xbox update!

Features:-

- Added Pistons & Sticky Pistons.
- Added Stackable fences.
- Added Shears – required to get wool from sheep, and to collect leaf blocks.
- TNT needs Flint and Steel or Redstone to detonate.
- Redstone wire will now connect to a repeater.
- New textures for Cobblestone and Brick.
- Added Character Skin Selector to allow players to choose their skin from the default skins, or from Downloadable Content skin packs.
- Added lighting improvements (brought forward from 1.8.2 update) and snow & rain improvements.
- Added a save file cache to improve the speed of displaying the saves list.
- Added ban list functionality to allow players to self-ban from levels they feel contain offensive content.
- Added a ban list section to the How To Play menus.
- Added an option for the host to limit online games to only players in their friends list (no friends of friends).
- Added a seed display to the level load screen (requires existing levels to be saved out again to add the display).
- Changed the tooltip display setting to in-game tooltip display, so that tooltips always display in menus.
- Added the crosshair to the list of things affected by the opacity slider.
- On using the quickselect bar, the opacity of the quickselect, tooltips, splitscreen gamertag display, and crosshair will be set to 80,
and will fade back down to the user opacity setting after 6 seconds of no quickselect bar use.
- Added some more Tips & Trivia to the loading/saving screen display.
Tutorial World changes & additions:-

- Added optional tutorial for Pistons and Redstone.
- Added a self-building bridge to the castle using Pistons.
- Added some sugar cane, cactii and clay to the world.
- Added a few other things for players to discover.

Fixes:-

- Fix for only the host being shown the pop-up when any player attempts to place lava near the spawn point.
- Fixed tooltip for Flint and Steel.
- Fix for Note blocks not showing notes.
- Fix for Leaderboard reads taking too long.
- Fix to block players re-entering a level they have been kicked from, until the level is restarted.
- Fix to stop players being able to join a game when they are not a friend of any player in the game.
- Fix for Netherracks re-appearing after being mined.
- Fix for a rare crash on entering the Nether.
- Fix for attacking enemies at a different level not damaging them.
- Fixed a problem causing some save games not to load.
- Removed Herobrine.

WOW! The responses to the Minecraft FB cover art photo contest were out of control. They were so awesome that I wanted to show off our Top 8 picks and also the winner.

This month’s theme was Minecraft Summer Picnic!

I went around and had everyone in the office vote on the winner. Here’s the finalists…

Jenny Haines

Tommy Elfving

Zelduc

Alex Barba

Chelsea Klaas

Daniel Ribera Olsen

Ben Jeatran

Thomas Philipson

And here’s the winner.

Nick Ladd! He made this based on A Sunny Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat.

Thank you to everyone who entered. We’d like to start doing this every month.

Make sure to go check out Nick’s Photo on the Minecraft Facebook Page!

Check here every Wednesday for a new Weekly Chunk!

- Lydia

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This week Dinnerbone (Nathan Adams) has arrived to the Mojang office in Stockholm. He’ll be working full-time on Minecraft here, and has already got a flying start! We managed to do a lot of fixing and tweaking for this week’s snapshot, and have finally decided to lock down on a proper release date for Minecraft 1.3: August 1, 2012.

A week prior to releasing, we’ll post a “release candidate” that is likely to be identical to the actual release. This version is intended to give server admins and modders a little more time to prepare for the new Minecraft version.

Minecraft 1.3 consists of a huge number of changes, and some of them are changes to the fundamental game engine. The most dramatic change is that we’ve kicked out single-player, and made it a shell on top of multi-player. There are two major benefits to this: first, it’s required for the modding api if we don’t want to have multiple implementations of every mod, and second, if we fix a bug in single-player, we know the bug is fixed in multi-player, too. Previously we had to fix bugs both in relation to single-player and multi-player.

Here’s a compact list of what the update will bring…

Minecraft 1.3: The Good

Lots and lots of bug fixes and new features. Players who mainly play in multi-player on servers should enjoy a smoother and more stable experience, as this has been our focus of the development. We’ve looked over the network packets and added encryption to prevent session stealing. Dinnerbone has updated the chatting screen, to allow for easier editing and clickable links.

The single/multi-player merge has added the possibility to share your single-player worlds with friends who are on the same local network. It has also enabled players to use multi-player-like commands in single-player (such as /gamemode and /give), but only if cheats are enabled.

We’ve added emeralds, emerald ore and a trading system that makes it possible to buy items from villagers. Villagers will add and remove items depending on what you buy.

We’ve added the possibility write in books and leave stories for other people.

We’ve added new terrain features, and you can choose to begin the game with a “bonus chest,” to get you started quicker.

We’ve added tripwire, so you can create new traps and contraptions.

We’ve also added new stairs, new half-slabs, cocoa plants and tweaked dispensers, leaves, cauldrons, levers, gravel, pressure plates, cookies, buckets, boats, minecarts, ice, furnaces… Plus you get magic orbs from mining and smelting (and not just killing monsters)!

Minecraft 1.3: The Bad

Since single-player has been turned into a shell on top of a background server, the game’s resource requirements have increased. When playing single-player, the game needs to be able to both simulate and emulate the world, which take many more CPU cycles. We’re working on optimizing rendering, but those improvements will not be included until Minecraft 1.4.

Minecraft 1.3: The Ugly

A couple of problems and expected features have been pushed to Minecraft 1.4. The most notable problem is the lighting issues causing black regions in the terrain. We’re looking into ways to solve this, but lighting is a very expensive calculation and we are struggling with finding a solution that doesn’t hurt framerate.

And the most notable missing feature is the modding API. Throwing out single-player was the first step in order to make the API possible, and that’s done now. We decided to release 1.3 without the API, because otherwise it would be an even longer wait for a Minecraft update.

We’ve also added an extremely basic version of “adventure mode.” We’ll work more on this in future updates.

To Summarize

The time between Minecraft 1.2.5 and 1.3 has been the longest update interval yet, and that was because we changed so much in the game engine. I (jeb_) was a little scared to push it to the public, but waiting even longer is not a solution.

If you want to get the whole Minecraft 1.3 change log, I suggest you read redstonehelper’s great summary here: http://www.reddit.com/r/edstonehelper/comments/p6lol/planned_for_the_next_update/

Snapshot 12w27a

• Bug fixes!
• Optimizations!
• Please check your piston contraptions. Most we’ve tested still work fine, but some require changes to repeater delays and similar. Overall, pistons should have fewer bugs, but will appear to update slightly slower.

Get the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w27a/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w27a/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you havent downloaded Minecraft you can grab it here: www.minecraft.net/download

// The Minecraft Team

Our Facebook page has been crying all day from neglect. I looked over it and realized… IT HAS NO COVER PHOTO.

It’s sooooooooo naked….

Every month we are going to ask for custom made cover photos. We will choose one to be featured on the Minecraft Facebook page each month. The bottom of the photo will let everyone know who created the artwork.

The theme for July is Minecraft Summer Picnic!

Make sure to do custom artwork if you want to be considered.

How to Submit:

- Go to the new Hej Mojang Submission page.
- On the right hand side click the ‘Submit Photo’ link.
- Photo MUST be 851 pixels by 315 pixels (the cover photo dimensions)
- Make sure to include your email address and name.
- In the text area – write what name you would like to be displayed on the artwork if yours is chosen. You can include one link to either your twitter account, youtube, FB, etc.
- You have until Tuesday, July 10th @ 11am EST.

PLEASE DO NOT SUBMIT SCREENSHOTS. This MUST be original artwork with the theme Minecraft Summer Picnic!

A winner will be chosen based on creativity, sticking with the theme, and overall awesomeness!

For those of you who aren’t artists, don’t worry there will be different non-artsy things coming up in the near future!

Working on a fun video for next week’s chunk.

Have a great day!

Lydia

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Hi Guys,

Everything is finally all figured out and I am in Sweden for good now. What that means for you is MUCH better content since I am actually in the Mojang office. Many of you have been asking about the new office. Yesterday was the first time I was able to see it and WOW is all I can say. The design team we hired and our very own Junkboy did an absolutely outstanding job making everything look perfect. There’s still some construction going on and things are being added, but it’s already completely impressive.

I’ll be starting up the Weekly Chunk videos in the office where you will get an inside scoop on each member of the Mojang Team. Also, there will be lots more tweeting from the @MojangTeam account. Make sure to follow what’s going on with the Mojangstas there.

The Mojang Office Snapshot :)

Weekly Snapshot

This week’s snapshot has a very simple change log:

• Bug fixes!

Especially one big performance bug was found and fixed, but also a lot of smaller ones. The release of Minecraft 1.3 is getting closer, but we still need to test more before it’s ready.

Get the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w26a/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w26a/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

Make sure to check back EVERY Wednesday for a new Weekly Chunk.

-Lydia

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We’re still focusing on bug fixing so we eventually can release the 1.3 patch. The biggest problem right now is that since the game is hosting a server in the background, the game requires more hardware resources than before. We’re trying to figure out a way to solve that, but here’s a weekly snapshot for now:

• Added a menu with options for opening your single-player world
• The multi-player menu now scans for LAN servers (single-player worlds)
• Villagers will remove trade options after the option has been used 3-15 times
• Added wooden stairs for the remaining three wood types
• Corrected Ender Chest storage (no longer whiped on respawning)
• A lot of smaller changes and fixes

Get the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w25a/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w25a/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you havent downloaded Minecraft you can grab it here: www.minecraft.net/download

// The Minecraft Team

This has been a busy week! We’ve moved to our new office, it looks great but is still far from finished. We were still able to squeeze in some work on Minecraft, so here’s the new snapshot:

• You can now use “/publish” to open your single-player game for LAN friends to join. This is still very much work in progress, so it lacks some necessary settings such as what game mode your friends will get, and if they should be able to use cheats or not. Also, the “/publish” command is temporary, you can’t even access it if you haven’t enabled cheats =)
• The Ender Chest has been changed to have an inventory per player and not per world. Also, knocking down the chest will break it into 8 obsidian, unless you have Silk Touch.
• The texture pack folder button now works on Mac
• A lot of smaller changes and fixes

Get the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w24a/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w24a/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you havent downloaded Minecraft you can grab it here: www.minecraft.net/download

// The Minecraft Team

We’ve been getting tons of questions about MineCon. So I wanted to give a quick update.

- MineCon will most definitely be THIS year and it will be in Europe.
- I’m headed to a secret location next week to check it out and hopefully sign papers for the location and date. WOOHOO!
- After everything is confirmed we will be giving you ALL the details.

Another frequent question has been about Mojang going to PAX Prime. I’m excited to tell you that we will be exhibiting there again this year!

Today’s challenge is something different. While I was in Washington, DC I went to see an exhibit featuring Minecraft at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. It’s an amazing exhibit called the Art of Gaming. If you are in DC this summer make sure to check it out! It’s running until September.

If you end up going take a photo there and tweet it at my personal account. I’d love to see it!

Have a wonderful week!

Lydia

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So here’s the new snapshot! This week got interrupted by the Swedish National Day, and we are focusing on finishing up stuff in order to release Minecraft 1.3. Also, we’re moving to our new office! Pics should be on this blog soon. So, in other words, this snapshot doesn’t have as many news as the previous weeks’, but here you go:

• Enchantment levels are slightly exponential again
• Added Ender Portal frame to creative inventory
• A lot of smaller changes and fixes

Get the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w23b/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w23b/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you havent downloaded Minecraft you can grab it here: www.minecraft.net/download

UPDATE: There was a bug that caused the game to crash when you “instant-destroyed” blocks with tools. For example when shearing leaves or removing crops with a hoe. This has been fixed, so the links above point to version “12w23b.”

// The Minecraft Team

Hi Guys!

This week I wanted to give you a run down of some fun Mojang things that happened this weekend. First of all on Friday, Notch had a great birthday party at a fun Stockholm club. The Mojanstas had a great night of celebrating an amazing guy!

Talk about an ice sculpture…

Saturday night it was time for the deadmau5 concert in Stockholm. deadmau5 is a big Minecraft fan and even was kind enough to have all of the Mojangstas back stage before the event.

Jens wore a creeper deadmau5 head the entire show. Even though it was rainy and really cold, it was absolutely awesome.

Multiple times in the show, deadmau5 had Minecraft graphics up on the screens. He had both grass blocks and a segment with a bunch of pigs in minecarts.

The Weekly Chunk videos won’t be weekly until I head back to the office, but every Wednesday there will be a post on here.

This week’s challenge is pretty easy… Play Minecraft. Next week the first community member will be interviewed on here (and they will be giving you a challenge).

Have a wonderful week!

-Lydia

Follow what the Mojangstas are up to:
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Snapshot time! Quick overview of changes:

• Trading with villagers has been updated
• Enchantment system has been rebalanced
• A new Redstone-activating block
• Better Creative inventory
• Pausing should work in single-player now
• Some minor terrain changes
• Added an “adventure” game mode (/gamemode 2), but requires more work
• A lot of smaller changes and fixes

Get the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w22a/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w22a/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you havent downloaded Minecraft you can grab it here: www.minecraft.net/download

I recently received an angry email about these snapshots. The complaint was that we just upload these JAR files with absolutely no information on how they are supposed to be used. This is true, and is somewhat of a legacy from how the snapshotting was started: to give previews of possibly broken features. Expert users could satisfy their curiosity, and we received invaluable feedback on work in progress.

The snapshots have gained popularity over time, though, so this information needs to be restated. The snapshots can potentially destroy your save games, even though we try our best not to do that. Only use them if you know what you are doing. To “install” a snapshot, you download the JAR file and replace the one located in your “application data” folder. The easiest way to find that folder is to start the game, select “texture packs” and click on the “open texture pack folder” button. It will locate “.minecraft/texturepacks”, and the JAR file should be placed in “.minecraft/bin”.

To UNINSTALL the snapshot, start the launcher (Minecraft.exe on Windows) and click the “options” button. Then click on “force update” and login as usual. The launcher will then download the official JAR file for you. Note that save games created in the snapshot may not work (and probably doesn’t) in the official version of the game.

// The Minecraft Team

Hey Guys,

Today has not been particularly going my way. Ever have a fail day? The video to accompany this week’s blog post will be released tomorrow, as it was having some trouble today.

Last week in the snapshot, the Minecraft devs released three new blocks – the enderchest, emerald ore, and sandstone stairs.

To tide you over until then, here’s a few great video submissions from the block advertisement contest:

First up, this one was made by PoliteGamer.

Check out this great cartoon by EggwardMcCloud

Here’s a great one about the sandstone stairs by SirVladimyr

Tomorrow The Weekly Chunk video will give you this week’s challenge. Be ready!

- Lydia

We rarely do snapshot updates to fix bugs, but since 21a contained an annoying bug that made it hard to play single-player we decided to do one this week. There are still problems, but we’re getting there!

We added a new creative mode inventory screen, please let us know what you think (target @Dinnerbone or @EvilSeph)! We also updated the language files to correct the diamond/emerald mix-up in the language files (diamonds were previously called emerald in the code, which caused a lot of confusion when we added a real emerald item). We had to ban another translator for griefing… it’s astonishing how much work some people put into these things… :)

Get the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w21b/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w21b/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you havent downloaded Minecraft you can grab it here: www.minecraft.net/download

// The Minecraft Team

Time for a new snapshot! One big difference this time is that you don’t need the server jar to play single-player. Also,

• Villagers will trade items (they are cheap bastards, though!)
• Added a “currency item”
• A few minor terrain changes
• A new useful block/item (requires obsidian)
• Added a /seed command for showing the map seed
• Added sandstone stairs
• A lot of smaller changes and fixes

Get the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w21a/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w21a/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you havent downloaded Minecraft you can grab it here: www.minecraft.net/download

// The Minecraft Team

Hi Guys!

Wow, I can’t believe it has been a week already. Time really flies. Congrats to @lewispphillips2 for coming up with “The Weekly Chunk” Name! There was an amazing number of entries for the #MinecraftXBLA contest last week. This week there are two special activities… and one is a secret (shhhh).

Check out this video for all the details!

Sorry this post took longer than normal. Next week it will be up earlier in the day. Make sure to check back every Wednesday for the Weekly Chunk post.

Have a great week!

Lydia
@MojangTeam
Youtube.com/TeamMojang
Facebook.com/Minecraft

P.S. Video quality will improve as soon as I’m back in Sweden!

Over here at Mojang, we’ve decided to start something new. A weekly celebration of the community. This will happen in various forms – videos, tweets, and a weekly blog post every Wednesday.

To kick this off, let’s celebrate the fact that Minecraft: Xbox 360 Version sold over 1 MILLION copies in just five days. You guys are AMAZING! How should we celebrate? Well what about by giving out a bunch of XBLA codes.

First follow @mojangteam on twitter, as both contests will be run there this week.

There’s two main ways you can win.

1. I have NO idea what to name this weekly community blog post. Help!?! Think up a great name and tweet it using the hashtag #MojangTeam. Think of something creative and awesome. Best name gets an XBLA code.

OR

2. Create something cool with the theme of “Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition.” It can be a photo, sculpture, drawing, photoshop artwork, or anything fun you can think up. Tweet a picture of it and use the hashtag #MinecraftXBLA. Some winners will be chosen at random and others based on awesomeness and originality. Some of them will be featured on a first community YouTube video next week!

Now… get to tweeting.

Don’t worry if you aren’t a twitter user, there will be lots of fun activities happening on the blog, YouTube, and also on Facebook. Check back every Wednesday for fun challenges and featured community members!

Have a great day!

Lydia

Hey!

Tomorrow’s a Swedish holiday, and on Friday we have something called a “squeeze day,” so we’ll not release a snapshot this week. Please relax and rest your eyes on this picture of a chunk error instead:

Cheers!

// The Minecraft Team

It’s time for the weekly snapshot. We are continuing on the work to separate the client from the server, and have fixed a bunch of stuff related to that transition. We’ve also,

• Added cocoa plants to jungles
• Added a “large biomes” world type
• Added specific names for the different sandstone and smooth stone blocks

Get the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w19a/minecraft.zip* (See below!)
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w19a/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

* The client now comes with both the client-side and the server-side JAR files. The file called “minecraft.jar” should be in your “.minecraft/bin” folder as usual, and the “minecraft_server.jar” file should be in a folder called “.minecraft/server”.

If you havent downloaded Minecraft you can grab it here: www.minecraft.net/download

Also! Cobalt was updated yesterday! Read all about it here: http://www.oxeyegames.com/cobalt-v105-alpha-change-log/

// The Minecraft Team

You can now enjoy Minecraft from your sofa!  I know a lot of you people have been waiting for this moment, and so have I! Really proud of what we have been doing and looking forward to the future updates that we have planned for the Xbox :)

Hi Guys!

Tomorrow (Wednesday, May 9th) is the day you’ve all been anxiously waiting for… the release on Minecraft on the Xbox 360.

Microsoft is putting on an amazing show called Xbox LIVE Arcade NEXT. Tomorrow night they are featuring Minecraft, as a celebration of the release. Seananners will be there playing live and I (Lydia) am currently on a flight headed to LA to be a guest on the show. There may be other special guests coming by too… I cannot disclose who I’ve heard might be there!

Xbox LIVE Arcade NEXT begins at 6pm PST (9pm EST). It will be happening LIVE on Twitch.tv

Come hang out with us on the livestream!

Let’s get #MinecraftXBLA trending on Twitter around the world ALL day tomorrow! Tweet about your excitement and use #MinecraftXBLA for a chance to WIN the game!

Important! This week’s snapshot is extra experimental!

This week we’ve started working on separating the server logic from the client. The purpose of this is both to make it easier for us to add features (since we don’t have to implement stuff “twice”), and also to make it possible for you to invite people to play on your local computer without setting up a server. In other words, more like how it works on Minecraft: Pocket Edition.

The work has not been completed yet, though, but a snapshot’s a snapshot. However, the game should still run fine, and we’ve also made some other tweaks:

• More fixes to silk touch and block picking
• Wooden tools work in furnaces
• Villagers spawned from spawning eggs will get a random profession
• Updated language files
• Etc…

Get the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w18a/minecraft.zip* (See below!)
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w18a/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

* The client now comes with both the client-side and the server-side JAR files. The file called “minecraft.jar” should be in your “.minecraft/bin” folder as usual, and the “minecraft_server.jar” file should be in a folder called “.minecraft/server”.

If you havent downloaded Minecraft you can grab it here: www.minecraft.net/download

// The Minecraft Team

Ahoy gamers!

We are soon close to the release of Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition and thus we have released some gamer pics and themes for your enjoyment :) See you on Xbox Live on the 9th of May!

(these stuff will be out soon :))

Here’s the development snapshot of week 17, 2012! This week’s list of changes:

• Added editable books
• Wooden half slabs in four colors (and they act as wood instead of stone)
• Bug fixing and tweaks, notably about entity collisions, “picking blocks” (creative mode), and chat
• Some other, censored stuff

Get the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w17a/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w17a/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you havent downloaded Minecraft you can grab it here: www.minecraft.net/download

// The Minecraft Team

As you may remember with the last update for Minecraft – Pocket Edition we started to introduce the “Survival” aspects of the game (health, mobs, day/night). We knew that the next aspect of the game needed crafting. So let me present: Minecraft Advanced Touch Technology Interface System (MATTIS). MATTIS will make crafting on the touch screens a breeze :)

1. First, fire up your inventory.
2. Click on Craft
3. Choose your category.
4. Choose the item you want to craft. DONE!

In addition to MATTIS we have also added more stuff:

• Zombies have refined AI
• Cows
• Ducks
• Description text of inventory items

Go grab on iOS AppStore and Google Play! :)

Here’s the development snapshot of week 16, 2012! This week’s list of changes is not as hidden as before:

• Added a demo mode for non-premium users (won’t be available until we do a full update)
• Added bonus chest option to create world screen
• Added option to enable single-player commands to create world screen
• Updated language files
• Bug fixing and tweaks

Get the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w16a/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w16a/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you havent downloaded Minecraft you can grab it here: www.minecraft.net/download

// The Minecraft Team

Here’s the development snapshot of week 15, 2012! @dinnerbone requested to keep the changelog secret, so blame him for this:

• Censored
• Censored
• Censored
• Some improvements

Get the snapshot here:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w15a/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w15a/minecraft_server.jar (or EXE)

If you havent downloaded Minecraft you can grab it here: www.minecraft.net/download

// The Minecraft Team

Cobalt has been updated and is now at version 104 alpha! Changes in versions 103 and 104 are,

• Custom levels placed in maps with either ctp_ dm_ or sur_ will now be loaded into the menu.
• Removed all girders from cannon arena and tweaked design and weapons.
• Improved head flying off rendering, also made all body parts be colored by the original actor.
• Objects and items that are destroyed (by explosions and heat for example) now have better feedback
• Tweaked object healths
• Added new deathmatch map, Gladiator
• Added new ctp map, Frozen
• Added new ctp map, Volcano
• Added new bounty map, Rumble in the City
• New preference in profile for always showing your player name under your actor
• Plug now has health and will die from sustained explosions and lava, and will respawn when destroyed.
• Jet shoes now do less damage initially, but also do heat damage over time.
• Extended the map filters for future use.
• Added bounty AI and better bounty hud.
• Profile names can now contain numbers as well as a number of special characters

… and lots of bug fixes! Also, the map editor is now unlocked and available from the menu.

If you want to access the Cobalt development builds you can pre-order the game at http://www.playcobalt.com. If you already own Cobalt you can update the game by logging in to the launcher.

You can read more info about the map editor in Oxeye Game Studio’s blog post!

Marc and I will be attending PAX all this weekend and giving away tons of things!

We won’t be having a Mojang booth, but we want to say hi to as many of you as possible! Meet up with us in front of the convention center to get your very own CREEPER TATTOO. I’ll be wearing a bright green creeper scarf and Marc will have on a Minecraft shirt!

Friday – 5pm

Saturday – 11am and 3pm

Sunday – 11am and 2pm

We will also be running fun contests for Jinx gear by tweeting locations to meet up. Follow the @mojangteam account to find out where to be!

See you this weekend!

~ Lydia

Hello

The last few days we’ve had a Minecraft mini conference with the new Minecraft developers @Dinnerbone, @_grum, @tahgtahv and @EvilSeph (old bukkit members) and Mojang’s biz and web teams. We’ve discussed our short- and long-term plans for Minecraft, which includes stuff such as the modding API and making it easier to start servers to play with your friends and family on.

The modding API will be designed and developed openly, to make sure we get important feedback from members of the community. It will obviously be inspired by the team’s experience from CraftBukkit, but will be created from scratch to avoid unnecessary dependencies on things that may not have been optimal in the past.

We’ve also prepared to be a larger team spread over several time zones, so we’ve moved to using git instead of svn, started using a task and story tracker, and configured a build project using Maven and Gradle. This is just a lot of developer mumbo-jumbo, but what I’m trying to say is that we are doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes.

Among the weekly tasks we’ve discussed whether we need to do a Minecraft 1.2.5 patch, or resume “snapshotting.” Unfortunately the 1.2.4 patch included a severe crash bug in the world generator, so we feel it’s necessary to officially patch the game again. We are aware that many of you use modded clients or play on the bukkit server implementation, and that patches causes a lot of overhead for you. Neither are officially supported of course, but it’s not in our interest to make it hard for people to play the game. The best compromise we could come up with was to make a pre-release of 1.2.5 today, and then update the game “for real” a few days later. This will give both modders and bukkit a few days to prepare for the release.

So here it is, Minecraft 1.2.5,

• Client download: JAR
• Server download: JAR or EXE

Changes:

• Added shift clicking support in furnaces
• Added method to easily acquire blocks you have selected in the world in Creative mode using the ‘pick block’ key
• Made the Direct Connect dialog remember the last IP for the current session
• Fixed issues detected certain links in chat
• Fixed wild ocelots behaving like tamed cats
• Fixed various chat crashes
• Made cats less eager to sit on things
• Made cats less patient
• Fixed world generation failing under certain circumstances
• Fixed issues turning off sound under certain circumstances
• Removed all ghost entities under the command of Lord Herobrine
• Fixed crash when pasting certain characters in chat
• Fixed slash ‘/’ key not behaving correctly in certain environments
• Fixed command matching being too greedy (for example: typing ‘/stophammertime’ no longer stops your server)
• Fixed not being able to click coloured links
• Fixed potential issue with village door detection (which could cause too many villagers)
• Made using a stack of bowls on Mooshrooms not consume the whole stack of bowls
• Made punching a TNT block with flint and steel in hand destroy and drop a TNT block (right-clicking will activate the TNT)

The exact same version will be added to the launcher on Wednesday April 4, at 15:00 CEST (06:00 in California, 09:00 in Florida, 22:00 in Korea, and 23:00 in Sydney).

Cheers,

// jeb_ & co

Hello

While I (jeb_) was away at Game Developer’s Conference and a short vacation, the new Minecraft members Dinnerbone, Tahg, Grum and EvilSeph were hard at work fixing multiple bugs in Minecraft 1.2. The patch contains mainly bug fixes, but we also threw in a couple of goodies:

• Chat history
• Much better chat editing and controls (you can even mark text!)
• Some new decoration blocks

The client should be updated in the launcher, where you also can see the full change list. You can find the launcher and server binaries for Minecraft here: http://www.minecraft.net/download

Cheers!

Since we are still developing Minecraft – Xbox 360 Edition (check below for a preview – the progress is going fine, release date coming soon!) we thought that these may help still your abstinence for your avatar needs :)

Click here to see the current Avatar items!

Enjoy! :)

Hey gamer-on-the-move! :)

I’m happy to announce that a new update is out.

We have tweaked some bits and pieces and this is more a tweak update than feature update:

• New controller option – Split Touch Controls. This is option may be more suitable for those with bigger screens (hello tablets!). You got a cross hair and the right half of the screen lets you rotate the camera. Touch to place block, hold down to remove blocks. Just like you did before :)
• Flying is changed; ascend/descend by sliding from the center button to the up/down button
• Pigs are added to Survival Mode
• Bug fixes

Grab it on Google Play and iOS Appstore now!

Next update is in the works and will contain Minecraft Advanced Touch Technology Interface System (MATTIS). More on that soon :)

Dear members of the internet,

We have settled the lawsuit over Scrolls and Mojang and Bethesda are friends again.

To answer the big question – yes Scrolls is still going to be called Scrolls.

To answer the second question – we aren’t going to keep the trade mark.

For us this was never about a trade mark but being able to use Scrolls as the name of our game which we can – Yey.

Minecraft version 1.2 (actually 1.2.1) is now officially released! Get it by updating the game in the Minecraft launcher. Features include:

• New jungle biome
• Added ocelots
• Added cats
• Added iron golems
• New AI for mobs
• Tame wolves can have puppies
• Villagers will have children if there is room in their village
• New map height limit (256 instead of 128)
• New items and blocks
• Doors have been updated so that double-doors work better with redstone
• Added rare drops for mobs
• Many other minor tweaks and fixes

In addition, the Minecraft launcher has been updated. The new launcher should properly select 64 bit Java installations for Mac OS X users. If you haven’t downloaded Minecraft yet you can grab it here: www.minecraft.net/download

Update: Uploaded Minecraft 1.2.2 because birches and pine trees were missing…

Hello!

We plan to release Minecraft 1.2 tomorrow, but you can already check it out by downloading and installing it like a weekly snapshot!

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/1_2/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/1_2/minecraft_server.jar

Full change log will be posted tomorrow, but it’s basically all the snapshots since Minecraft 1.1 packed into one :)

Today we can announce that the four main developers of bukkit – a community-based Minecraft server implementation – have joined ranks with Mojang to bring you the same flexibility and versatility to the official Minecraft server. The four, Warren Loo (@evilseph), Erik Broes (@_grum), Nathan Adams (@dinnerbone) and Nathan Gilbert (@tahgtahv), will work on improving both the server and the client to offer better official support for larger servers and server modifications.

The plan is to build a fresh server API, and then extend it to support client-side modding (in one way or another). We will try to make it easy for bukkit users to convert if they wish to do so, but backwards compatibility is not guaranteed. We will, however, help bukkit to be compatible with 1.2, to avoid having a long gap while you wait for the official Minecraft server to catch up.

Many of you may ask why we decided to work with bukkit instead of other Minecraft teams, such as Spout or Forge. The reason is that we want more than just modding, and these guys have always had server admins in mind when developing their additions to the game. We hope that this will help the quality of Minecraft multi-player to improve, both for large and private family servers, while still being able to add fun stuff for the bigger audience.

In addition to the bukkit members, Daniel Kaplan (@kappische) will join to handle the project lead to coordinate Minecraft’s broader goals. I (@jeb_) will remain as lead developer and game designer for Minecraft.

WOW! Just wanted to give a shout out to the Korean Community! :D

We are super proud of the iOS and Android update that we released some week ago and I just wanted to let you know that we love you :D

There are more things to come but I have gotten some questions and bug reports (much appreciated).

We have gotten a lot of bugs reported to us but these two we are very well aware of and are already fixed in the coming update:

• Some resources cannot be picked up (cloth will be pickup able when crafting is introduced)
• If you were on fire when you died you would respawn on fire

A lot of people have reported that you can’t fly in Creative which is wrong. First double tap the jump button. Then you double tap up and or down to go up or down :) Easy as that.

So when is next update out and what will it contain?

Mostly fixes but no date yet. I will of course let you know when it is nailed down what it will contain :)