Minecraft

[Mr. Johnson]

Notch sounds a bit like Baliame. Scary stuff.

This also reminds me of a conversation we had on teamspeak a few weeks back about adventure maps. They're quite fun and some of them seem quite good, so we should probably try them at some point. Simon and Lewis from the yogscast play them often so check out their channel here if you want some idea about adventure maps. Thanks to Grimmie for suggesting!

[Baliame]

Notch sounds a bit like Baliame. Scary stuff.

Holy shit, that he does.

Except I sound a hundred times sexier.

[Mr. Johnson]

You would if you wore a hat and sported a beard like notch does. Women can't resist that, I should know.

[spoodie]

There's a 1.8 pre-release version available: http://assets.minecraft.net/1_8-pre/minecraft.jar
Stick this on your .minecraft\bin folder, make a backup of the original.

Biomes look a lot better and the lighting is lovely. Exploring has become interesting again.

[Dog Pants]

When's the official release for 1.8 again?

[spoodie]

I think they committed to 11-11-11 for the move from "beta" to "final", but nothing specific for 1.8. It's gotta be very close though.

[Grimmie]

Next week or two, I think - though the pre-release of 1.8 has been leaked

[Dog Pants]

Next week or two, I think - though the pre-release of 1.8 has been leaked

There's a 1.8 pre-release version available: http://assets.minecraft.net/1_8-pre/minecraft.jar
Stick this on your .minecraft\bin folder, make a backup of the original.

Biomes look a lot better and the lighting is lovely. Exploring has become interesting again.

Spoodie! You naughty leaker.

[spoodie]

As with major version releases, prerelease copies are normally distributed to trusted users and developers for bugfix testing and to enable mod updating in time for the official release.

Unfortunately, a version of the prerelease had been publicly leaked by one of the groups.
After a while the leak was sanctioned by Mojang and permission was given for this topic to be published.

Before I saw this I assumed it was sanctioned as it's hosted on the official website. And I wasn't the first to the party, so they had the opportunity to take it down before I got to it.

FYI - It's an amazing update and I've not even seen a village yet. I found a large, abandoned mine. Which would have been very dangerous had I not been playing on peaceful. Is there a specific name for mineshaft roof supporting beams? There was lots of those, underground wood supply! Also free cart track!

[Dog Pants]

Strut?

[Grimmie]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5WBsBDXqDs[/media]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hweSMd48fe4[/media]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNBMF6z6ieY[/media]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mekrb5ac4ME[/media]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLnJG6U2bKM[/media]

[Legoshoes]

Well, that's my evening sorted.

[spoodie]

Well, that's my evening sorted.

Although not sure if I should discover these myself. I've set myself up in a village now, its very cool. And I've not found any game breaking bugs, just some visual glitches.

[deject]

The watermelon is amazing!

[TezzRexx]

Got a 1.8 server going for half an hour before I go to bed, give me a IM over Xfire if you wanna join :}

[Dog Pants]

I got bored of waiting for 1.8 so I had a go at the pre-release last night, and it's rather good. The food thing horses you to go out and prevents you from turtling, which was ultimately what tired me of the game last time, and there are some crazy things out there to find now like mines and towers. All very good.

Unfortunately while having a look at the Twitter feed of one of the devs to try to gauge how far off the official release is (since it didn't go live yesterday like they hoped), I found this comment:

I've been alone on Minecraft since after PAX. Notch is working on a secret project

Now I know we've been over this, sort of, but I can't help but feel disappointed. I could understand a shift of focus once Minecraft had been released, but people made Notch his fortune paying for Minecraft and he hasn't actually delivered on that yet. He seems to have changed his attitude to the game since they formed Mojang as a company. Still, there is an awful lot to this next update and if there's a similar amount of content added when the full game is released (which is in two months, so maybe not) then I should have nothing to complain about.

[Joose]

PAX wasn't that long ago, and according to notch he is back on minecraft this week, and will be for a while. Plus, it might have made him his money, but it's not just him now, it's a business. You can't really begrudge them wanting to plan for their own future, and having big gaps between game releases is a great way for a company to run out of cash.

[Grimmie]

Addendum:

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXjW2nn_m-0[/media]

[spoodie]

The stronghold is not that impressive, once you've already seen an abandoned mine, which are common underground. I used Cartograph G to look at the layers so I was able to find a stronghold for myself. A rare castle/fort above ground would be another nice addition.

Once the "final" version is out, and presumably it becomes more stable, modders will become the real source great things. That's what I'm looking forward to.

[Grimmie]

I think I agree, the mods once all the tools and code are released are going to be immense.
There are already some massive game-changing ones out there, but the final ones will be incredible.

1.9 promises spendable experience, I wonder if NPCs will be included in that update to populate the villages, mines and strongholds?