Minecraft

Minecraft45 posts
24 Jul, 2015

Title Update 27

Announcement

Title Update 27 for the Xbox 360, Content Update 15 for the Xbox One, and the patch 1.18 for the PS Vita, PS3 and PS4 are available for download. Most of this patch involves bug fixes, but it also includes arcadia and dark oak furniture. This patch also includes the Greek Mythology Mash-up DLC which includes features like different player interface, special soundtrack, a custom set for texture, and 39 additional skins. The Greek Mash-up pack costs £3.29/$3.99 and is already available on the Xbox marketplace and PSN.

★Minecraft Xbox 360 + PS3: Title Update 27 – The Next Big Update Talks + Q&A★

Minecraft movie director

Rob McElhenneyCasting

At London’s MineCon, McElhenney is chosen to direct the Minecraft Movie which comes out in 2017.

Some of you may have seen this guy hanging around MINECON in London a couple weeks ago. He’s Rob McElhenney, and he’s going to be directing the upcoming Minecraft movie

23 Feb, 2015

Xbox One Title Update 21

Title Update 21 is released for Minecraft on XBOX One . It comes with play improvements and bug fixes, such as Redstone fixes and a fix for the horses that disappear. There is also an increase limit on the Minecart,

Minecraft (Xbox360/PS3) – TITLE UPDATE 21 – RELEASED! + CHANGES/ADDITIONS

15 Jul, 2014

Character model update

Minecraft developer Jens Bergensten tweets a possible update to the Minecraft character skins which involves changing the arms from four to three pixels in width. He explains that it would be an optional feature.

7 Jul, 2014

Mineorama postponed

Mineorama, an unofficial Minecraft convention set to happen in New York on July 12-13, is postponed until further notice. Thousands of tickets are sold and Mineorama does not give any explanation or information about refunds.

6 Jul, 2014

1080p Resolution

Microsoft Studios’ Roger Carpenter confirms that Minecraft will run at 1080p and 60fps on both the XBox One and PS4. The graphics are not the only enhancement as the game will also support larger world sizes and map seeds up to 36 times larger than Xbox360 and PS3 versions. This enhanced version of Minecraft will be out in August 2014 at a price of $19.99.

20 Jun, 2014

Wii U/3DS Minecraft release possible

MojangNintendoInterview

Shigeru Miyamoto and Shinya Takahashi, managers of Nintendo’s Analysis & Development and Software Planning & Development departments respectively, tell Kotaku that they are interested in bringing Minecraft to Wii U or 3DS:

We’ve always thought internally that using the [Wii U] GamePad would probably make for a Minecraft that’s very easy to play. And, of course, if we were to do something with Minecraft on the 3DS, similarly we would probably do it where it would be easier to play and could probably reach a lot of kids.

However, they do not give any details regarding negotiations with Mojang or a timeline for release:

Maybe we’re meeting with them [Mojang]! Who knows?

10 Jun, 2014

Minecraft for PS4

NotchSonyAnnouncement

A trailer for the PlayStation 4 version of Minecraft is shown at the 2014 E3 conference. Old saves from the PlayStation 3 version will be compatible with this update, but people who bought the PS3 version of Minecraft will have to pay a small fee to get the PS4 version. New features in the PS4 version include 36 times larger worlds, new controls, and a four panel split screen for multiplayer.

Minecraft Announcement Trailer | E3 2014 | PS4

9 Jun, 2014

Pocket Edition infinite worlds

Mojang releases the 0.9.0 snapshot for Minecraft Pocket Edition, which includes infinite worlds, new physics mechanics for gravel, sand, lava, and water, and many new blocks including mycelium and emerald. Before this point, the Pocket Edition smartphone application only supports worlds that are 256 by 256 blocks wide and lacks many of the blocks present in the PC game. The snapshot is posted on the Mojang blog for users to download:

The Pocket Edition team are a hard-working bunch. Their most recent snapshot is the biggest update to Minecraft: Pocket Edition so far! It really is massive.

7 Jun, 2014

Server monetization guidelines

Notch

Mojang sets guidelines for how servers can raise money in order to pay for their operating costs. They say server administrators are allowed to charge for access to servers, accept donations, and have advertisements on their servers, but are not allowed to give users who donate unfair advantages:

These rules are making attempts to prevent Minecraft servers becoming “pay-to-win.” We hate the idea of server hosts restricting Minecraft’s features to players who have already bought our game! It seems really mean.

Notch clarifies that this includes servers with custom gameplay modes that are not present in vanilla Minecraft:

19 May, 2014

Realms available worldwide

Notch

Minecraft Realms, a server hosting service by Mojang, is released worldwide for the Mac and PC versions of the game. The service costs $13 per month and does not require setting up a LAN network or configuring IP addresses to start a server:

We’re proud to announce that Minecraft Realms for PC and Mac is now available worldwide! Realms is the easiest way for you to host a Minecraft world online. You and your friends can work on an awesome creation, adventure into the depths, or play one of our featured mini-games with just a few clicks.

25 Mar, 2014

Notch against Facebook

FacebookMojangNotchAnnouncement

Notch posts on his blog that he will not develop for the virtual-reality device Oculus Rift because Facebook acquired the company behind it. Before this, he considers creating a version of Minecraft or another game for the platform:

I definitely want to be a part of VR, but I will not work with Facebook. Their motives are too unclear and shifting, and they haven’t historically been a stable platform. There’s nothing about their history that makes me trust them, and that makes them seem creepy to me.

24 May, 2013

Japanese lessons

James York, an English teacher and language acquisition PhD student, releases a Japanese course called Kotoba Miners using Minecraft as a classroom. The lessons involve various objectives which require players to read and speak to each other in Japanese to progress in the game. York says this is more beneficial than traditional classrooms for gaining fluency because it forces players to interact in Japanese:

The biggest advantage for Kotoba Miners is the fact that people can log in from all around the world at the same time and connect with other Japanese learners and actually practice SPEAKING the language. The majority of students that come to Kotoba Miners that have been studying Japanese in the past invariably say something along the lines of: “I’ve been studying Japanese for a while, but I’ve never actually spoken it…”

24 Nov, 2012

Minecon 2012

JebMojangNotch

Minecon 2012 is held at Disneyland Paris and about 4,500 fans attend. People wear costumes, meet other fans, and get to see Minecraft Youtubers like Vareide, CaptainSparklez and SethBling in person.

MINECON 2012 Announcement!

27 Sep, 2012

Notch against Windows 8

MicrosoftMojangNotch

Notch criticizes Microsoft for its regulations regarding which games can appear on the Windows 8 app store. Microsoft must approve all games to ensure that they are coded properly and do not contain adult content.

28 Feb, 2012

Bukkit team joins Mojang

Mojang

Warren “EvilSeph” Loo, Erik “Grum” Broes, Nathan “Dinnerbone” Adams and Nathan “Tahg” Gilbert, the developers of the Bukkit server implementation mod, are hired to work on the official Minecraft server API:

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.

18 Jan, 2012

SOPA protest

MojangNotch

The official websites of Mojang and Minecraft are shut down to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Users are unable to purchase Minecraft or play the browser-based version, but they can play the game if they have the client downloaded. Notch tells PC Gamer:

No sane person can be for SOPA, I don’t know if we’re sane, but we are strongly, uncompromisingly against SOPA, and any similar laws. Sacrificing freedom of speech for the benefit of corporate profit is abominable and disgusting.

2 Dec, 2011

Jeb becomes lead developer

JebMojangNotch

Notch announces that he is stepping down as lead developer of Minecraft and giving Jeb the job. Notch’s position as the head of Mojang remains unchanged and he says he will start working on a new project soon:

We’ve been working together on Minecraft for a year now, and I’m amazed at how much in synch we two are when it comes to how to design the game…Personally, I will now rest for a while, then get back to work refreshed and eager. I’ll be helping out with Minecraft, of course, but also starting work on some new project.

23 Nov, 2011

Yogscast, Notch settle differences

NotchYogscast

The Yogscast responds to allegations by Notch that they behave inappropriately at Minecon 2011:

We are very disappointed by these tweets from someone we admire and respect. We can understand that it was the morning after the deadmau5 party and Notch was very tired, but we are still fairly upset. The quotes and actions that Notch attributed to us were not said by us or published anywhere by us.

Notch apologizes:

The Yogscast releases a video saying that “he was very tired . . . so we can let him off for that.”

Yogscast response to Notch's Twitterings

21 Nov, 2011

Notch: Yogscast ‘total dicks’

NotchYogscastAccusation

Notch accuses the Yogscast YouTube duo of being rude to kids at Minecon 2011 and acting like they are better than the other speakers at the event:

The Yogscast does not have time to respond immediately:

18 Nov, 2011

Minecon 2011

Notch

Minecon 2011 is held at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, and almost 5,000 people are in attendance:

On Friday, the exhibit hall and game room will open at 10am and the first keynote address will begin at 1pm. Both days will be jammed packed with exciting events such as contest, exhibits, classes covering all different Minecraft topics (with special quests speaking on panels), the Indie Developer theatre, special announcements and much more.

Official Minecon trailer

Official release

JebMojangNotch

Minecraft 1.0 is officially released during Minecon 2011. Though the game sells millions of copies before this point, technically it is considered a beta game until 1.0. The 1.0 update also includes several new features including a dimension where players fight the Ender Dragon, the final boss of the game.

Notch Launches Minecraft 1.0

25 May, 2011

Pocket Edition

MojangAnnouncement

Daniel Kaplan announces on Mojang’s blog that Minecraft Pocket Edition, a version of the game for smartphones, will be demonstrated at E3 2011. He says the first device to get Pocket Edition will be the Xperia Play. A representative from Mojang tells TouchArcade that changes are needed to make the game compatible with smartphones:

When playing on smart phones you will have a different screen size compared to PC, different hardware, different attention spans and thus the game needs to be customized to fit the mobile specifications

Minecraft – Pocket Edition on Xperia Play

12 Jan, 2011

One million sales

Notch

Sales of Minecraft surpass one million. The Minecraft.net server goes down shortly afterwards and Notch fixes the website while celebrating the milestone:

Minecraft.net got all weird.. Working on it now. The champagne isn’t helping. Where’s enter?

20 Dec, 2010

Beta

Notch

Minecraft officially enters beta with the 1.0 update. The price increases from €9.95 to €14.95 (about $14 to $20). The beta 1.0 update mostly consists of minor bug fixes but also includes a patch for an inventory duplication glitch that existed previously.

1 Dec, 2010

Jeb hired

Jeb

Jeb_Jens “Jeb” Bergensten joins Mojang as a server programmer. He has experience working for a number of small independent game development studios as well as his own online role-playing game called Whispers in Akarra:

Now I’m looking forward to work with Mojang as a server programmer, and hopefully I will get the chance to help improving Minecraft as well 🙂 Server programming is mainly about writing Spring configurations and data access objects anyway. 😉

23 Sep, 2010

Classic returns

Notch

Notch puts Minecraft Classic back on the Minecraft website for people to play. It is free, but lacks all of the features present in Minecraft Alpha including survival mode.

Minecraft Classic Demo

13 Sep, 2010

Daniel Kaplan hired

Notch

Kaplan is hired to take care of business and financial matters at Mojang. Notch reveals he is actually the third member of the company but he does not disclose the other employee’s name because they are working on a secret project. Kaplan has experience working with the independent game development studio Ludosity:

At Mojang I will work with different things. First I need to get to know you guys and your needs and what makes Minecraft special for you and how we can make Minecraft an even better game! So my first days at Mojang will be to look for alternative solutions for Paypal and I will eventually also take on the support so Notch can concentrate on what he does best: code and design Minecraft.

31 Aug, 2010

MinecraftCon 2010

Notch

Notch announces a Minecraft meet-up called MinecraftCon 2010 about a week before the event:

I have all day on August 31 free in Bellevue, and I’ve gotten several requests from people who want to meet me. I figured we could call it MinecraftCon 2010 even it’s just three people sitting around in uncomfortable silence for 20 minutes. 😀

Minecraft fans show up and ask him many questions about the development of the game:

MinecraftCon 2010

27 Feb, 2010

Infdev

Notch

Minecraft officially passes from the indev (in development) phase to the infdev (infinite development) phase. This phase is focused on getting infinitely large terrain to generate properly:

There’s a lot of bugs and a lot of missing features, but here, have some infinite maps. _please_ don’t report bugs in this yet, I am aware that it’s extremely buggy.

23 Feb, 2010

‘I will add infinite maps’

NotchAnnouncement

Notch decides to add infinitely large maps to Minecraft. He admits that technically maps are limited to 324 nonillion blocks large but says that any computer will run out of disk space before approaching that limit:

There’s going to be a LOT of work to be done after this initial release of infinite maps, and that release might be a pretty big step backwards in functionality in some aspects (water might not work at all in it, for example), but I think I can reach this first release pretty fast.

5 Feb, 2010

Dock fired

DockNotchFired

Dock is let go from his job as the official artist for Minecraft. Notch acknowledges his skill as a game designer but says he prefers to develop alone:

I went from doing Minecraft on my own to suddenly having to wait for someone else before I could move on. We had repeated problems getting anything animated to load into the game, and eventually I decided to just go ahead on my own.

29 Jan, 2010

Crafting

Notch

Crafting is added to Minecraft in the indev 0.31 update. Users arrange items in a grid to create other items. Notch creates a video to help players understand what to do:

It’s not very intuitive yet, but it kinda actually works!

Crafting and Mining in Minecraft

23 Dec, 2009

Indev

Notch

Minecraft enters the indev (in development) phase with the 0.31 update. Paid users are able to test the latest survival updates, but Notch warns they may be buggy:

This is not official in any way, but I’ve gotten several requests that people who paid should be able to play the latest version, even if it’s horribly buggy and crashes all the time. And I agree. They should be able to do that, at their own risk.

22 Dec, 2009

Dock hired as artist

Dock

Hayden Scott-Baron, also known as Dock, becomes the official artist for Minecraft. He has experience drawing for the LostWinds Wii game and Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 PC game. He creates a new logo for Minecraft as well as a new character model:

It isn’t as square and blocky as the old models, and that kinda scared me at first. But when the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this was the way to go. Given enough square edges, the models will fit in fine, and these are much more customizable and have much more personality.

1 Sep, 2009

Survival test

Notch

Black.pngfb59b762-4d58-4f40-98f3-34d2f2810b0bLargeSurvival test officially begins with the 0.24 update. It is only available to people who pre-pay for the game at €9.95 for a few weeks but then Notch decides to make it free. This version includes more interactive mobs, allows users to save and load survival maps, and adds Creeper enemies:

You have to pre-purchase the game to be able to participate in the test. This test is not an accurate demonstration of how the final survival mode will be. It does, however, contain many of the gameplay elements that will be included in Survival Mode. I’m making it available for you both to get some feedback while I’m in Indonesia for three weeks, and to thank you for pre-purchasing the game.

8 Jun, 2009

Multiplayer

Notch

Notch releases the 0.0.16a update which adds multiplayer to the game. Users can log in to the Minecraft website and join a server to build with other users:

It’s probably riddled with bugs still.

24 May, 2009

Forums open

Notch creates official Minecraft forums on Mojang’s website. Users can give input about the game and share save files with each other.

14 May, 2009

Minecraft: Order of the Stone

Notch

Cave Game is renamed Minecraft: Order of the Stone at the suggestion of one of Notch’s friends on the Independent Games Wiki IRC:

The awesome but insane people in #tigirc helped me come up with a title for this game, and it’s Minecraft: Order of the Stone. Minecraft because it’s a good name. Order of the Stone because it sounds like Order of the Stick, one of the best things on the internet.

13 May, 2009

Cave Game

Notch

Notch releases a blog post with a link to a YouTube video showcasing an early test version of Cave Game. It features a world made of stone and grass cubes. In the description of the video, he describes it as an “Infiniminer clone” and says he is undecided about whether or not he will finish the project:

Cave game tech test

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