By Alec Meer on April 11th, 2011 at 8:26 am.
You should have got this out in time for Christmas, Notch. Everyone knows that things with snow in sell 300014% as well at Christmas. Why release something with snow in at any other time of year? People just don’t care about snow now. Why, if it snowed today we’d all just ignore it, because it wasn’t Christmas. That’s how we roll.
And this is how the new weather effects in Minecraft roll. Oh, what a link!
This is part of the v1.5 update, hopefully due this week. Notch says of the state of play in this video that “rain and especially thunder is waaay too common in this test, for demo purposes.”
Thunder is never too common, sir.
Anyway, this looks great. Although the rain seems maybe a little bit too blue? God, I think that might be the most empty, pointless thing I’ve ever said on the internet.
11/04/2011 at 08:30 mechtroid says:
Here’s hoping lightning will be able to start forest fires.
11/04/2011 at 08:41 Rikard Peterson says:
Only you can start forest fires.
11/04/2011 at 08:55 Churba says:
Unless it’s a multiplayer server.
11/04/2011 at 10:53 fionny says:
Ah yes nothing nicer then logging into your multiplayer server to find randomly burning logs and burnt out buildings everywhere
11/04/2011 at 10:56 Meneth says:
Well, it’d pretty effectively teach one important rule:
Don’t build stuff out of wood if there’s a good risk of fire.
Several cities (London and Oslo, for example) had to learn it the hard way.
11/04/2011 at 12:02 Tei says:
Some of the prettier buildings are made of wood. “banning” wood from buildings will result in eyerape, with a lot of coblestone buildings.
Also, what about whole buildings made of wool, because need pretty colors?
Fire is too strong to start randomly just because. So lets hope the fire is just a visual effect, and not something that will burn whole cities every few hours.
11/04/2011 at 13:27 ShaunCG says:
@Churba: Oh, we know it:
http://www.arcadianrhythms.com/2011/03/breaking-news-forest-fire/
He was up until 5am putting that out. :D
11/04/2011 at 14:27 Urthman says:
From Notch’s Twitter:
MUOAHAHA! Pigs that get hit by lightning turn into zombie pigmen ;D
11/04/2011 at 08:32 Matt says:
That looks to be quite the blizzard entertainment.
11/04/2011 at 09:37 Anthile says:
You’re a horrible person.
11/04/2011 at 10:58 Sorvin says:
You made me giggle
11/04/2011 at 08:33 Valvarexart says:
What about the consequences of thunder? Fire! Fire everywhere!
11/04/2011 at 10:44 patricij says:
in the last interview Notch said that removed the creeper exploding in the absence of the player, because it frustrated the player. So from that point on, only things with a direct connection with the player’s actions happen. And I think it’s a very sensible choice…
11/04/2011 at 14:00 Evil Otto says:
At around 0:48 in the video, you can see a lightning strike in the background, resulting in a fire.
11/04/2011 at 08:33 Bigboy says:
So much damn snow. Half that amount would be awesome.
11/04/2011 at 14:30 Urthman says:
That’s the sort of thing you can adjust with a texture pack to make the falling snow as dense or light as you like.
11/04/2011 at 08:34 Pobblepop says:
Guess I’ll be needing a rain hat then…. Gabe?
11/04/2011 at 20:29 Wulf says:
I wasn’t expecting the ‘Valve have purchased Mojang’ statement to go public until Friday!
11/04/2011 at 08:35 Valvarexart says:
Wait, will the water and snow collect? How will we get rid of it?
11/04/2011 at 08:56 Churba says:
Snow kinda does – it creates snow blocks on any uncovered surface and freezes water, but water does not accumulate in low lying areas, because notch thought that would be kinda annoying.
11/04/2011 at 10:04 Tusque D'Ivoire says:
Hell yes it would be annoying, especially now that you can’t swim upstream anymore… But somehow, on the sensible issues, notch always proves to make the right decisions.
11/04/2011 at 08:46 MD says:
If that truly is the most empty, pointless thing you’ve ever said on the internet, you’re a better man than most of us.
11/04/2011 at 12:20 DeanLearner says:
Yeah, that’s what she said.
11/04/2011 at 08:46 The Army of None says:
THAT RAIN IS TOO BLUE, I’M BOYCOTTING THIS GAME BECAUSE ITS RAINBOW COLORED AND FOR KIDS NOW.
11/04/2011 at 10:31 TheApologist says:
You’re a little devil.
11/04/2011 at 14:33 Urthman says:
If you don’t like the rain color (or the Blizzard) you can change it with a different texture pack.
11/04/2011 at 08:59 negativedge says:
the snow looks like it’s suspended in the air whenever you move. maybe the flakes are too big.
rain looks pretty nice.
11/04/2011 at 09:47 skurmedel says:
It does in real life too sometimes. It depends on the size of the flakes and your speed.
11/04/2011 at 09:01 harmen says:
Isn’t every snowflake supposed to be unique?
11/04/2011 at 10:36 Temple to Tei says:
So, a one-for-one scale earth with every snowflake unique?
I think God would sue for trademark infringement.
Also, DO NOT GIVE NOTCH IDEAS.
11/04/2011 at 11:36 jon_hill987 says:
If God didn’t Steve Jobs would. Apple seem to have a patent for everything and are not shy with their lawyers.
11/04/2011 at 09:02 sk2k says:
Great! Totally useless addition. The biomes are too tiny for this. With larger biomes it would be cool.
11/04/2011 at 09:09 Dimonte says:
Slow news day, eh?
11/04/2011 at 09:19 harmen says:
Snow news day, eh?
11/04/2011 at 09:20 Vague-rant says:
Damn, the easier pun is already made.
I think you’ll find that there’s no news today.
11/04/2011 at 10:18 Valvarexart says:
Snow way that there’s no news today! Oh, wait….
11/04/2011 at 10:28 The Colonel says:
Rain it in lads. Some of us have been waiting for this update with tense precipitation so jokes are not really appreciated.
11/04/2011 at 11:32 The Tupper says:
I was wondering weather to post a pun myself, but couldn’t think of any good ones.
11/04/2011 at 12:16 Pie21 says:
Well that’s a completely unenlightning comment, then.
11/04/2011 at 12:31 dragonhunter21 says:
Looks like we’re going to have to weather this storm of puns out.
(we’re all horrible people)
11/04/2011 at 12:45 The Tupper says:
Frankly, a storm of opprobrium over my language use is unwarranted. I’m being punnished for my eloquence by those who wish to rain on my paraideeeeeIIIDEEEEAAAAIIIIIIRGH! HELP! HELP ME!
11/04/2011 at 12:50 Navagon says:
You thundering punsters are brewing up a storm again.
11/04/2011 at 20:36 Wulf says:
So we’re just brainstorming puns for the rest of the day, then? Bah, when it comes to professional humour, we’re all wet.
12/04/2011 at 04:31 Ruffian says:
(weather pun # 11)
12/04/2011 at 04:37 JackShandy says:
Dew think these puns have gone too far?
11/04/2011 at 09:13 Ondrej says:
We already have a bow, now we’re getting rain. We have all the necessary ingredients for a rainbow.
Rainbows FTW!
11/04/2011 at 16:18 Thermal Ions says:
Can’t have rainbows without ponies or unicorns though.
11/04/2011 at 20:45 Wulf says:
I wholeheartedly support the inclusion of rainbows and unicorns. I would love to see them included, especially if we could tame and ride the unicorns. Yes.
12/04/2011 at 13:17 bastronaut says:
Is the MoCreatures mod still being kept up to date? Ponies, unicorns and pegasus (or is the plural “pegasi”?). Also bunnies, lions and various new monsters. But you may quickly tire of mods breaking with every new release of Minecraft, as did I.
11/04/2011 at 09:14 MuscleHorse says:
Restating that this will be the best update if blizzards actually cause things to be buried under snow and thunder storms cause flash floods while spelunking.
11/04/2011 at 09:18 Jonathan says:
Smashing ice with a rose. Ah, Minecraft, your logic is amusing.
11/04/2011 at 10:37 Temple to Tei says:
New character name for my Abyssal Exalted.
Thank you.
11/04/2011 at 09:30 JuJuCam says:
Turns out I’m the type of person who laughs at an achievement called “getting wood”. Would never have guessed…
11/04/2011 at 10:38 Temple to Tei says:
I have wood for sheep.
Anyone?
11/04/2011 at 11:32 Koozer says:
It’s coal not ore! I’m not listening any more!
11/04/2011 at 09:47 Jonas says:
My second thought upon seeing that video was indeed “that sure is some hyper-blue rain”. I think it would be slightly more atmospheric if it were just white/grey. However, my first thought was something along the lines of “that looks brilliant!” So I think I’ll live.
Next step: specular maps for everything to glisten when it gets wet! :D
11/04/2011 at 17:44 Urael says:
The water is blue. In the world of Minecraft rain should absolutely be blue too.
11/04/2011 at 09:53 Aldehyde says:
Maybe one day they’ll actually add a list of the different things you can make and the combinations for it, in-game.
I will look stupid if it’s in there somewhere.
11/04/2011 at 15:38 Tuan says:
Always though that was sort of the point, to make you play around and explore and see what you can make instead of just looking everything up
11/04/2011 at 16:58 Highstorm says:
I think that is precisely what the achievement system is attempting to do. If you pause at the 1:05 mark, you can see the tooltip reads, “Attack a tree until a block of wood pops out.” before he’s actually done it. Then later at the 2:10 mark, the tooltip reads, “Create a workbench with four blocks of planks.”
11/04/2011 at 17:36 Demonbooker says:
Yeah, it seems like that new Achievement path is meant as sort of a Tutorial kinda thing.
11/04/2011 at 10:05 Milky1985 says:
Thats a good use for achivements actually, its basically a tutorial so you have an idea of how to play the game!
11/04/2011 at 10:32 Olero says:
I’m not sure weather I like it…
11/04/2011 at 10:33 Pike says:
From Notch’s twitter:
“MUOAHAHA! Thunder Storms lower the brightness. That means daytime monsters during storms. This is freakily atmospheric.”
Hold me, I’m scared…
11/04/2011 at 10:37 The Colonel says:
Guess I’ll have to stop wearing that iron hat outdoors…
11/04/2011 at 10:48 patricij says:
Finally…I missed snow at my first base…it’s so nice to look at snow from my heated bath :)
11/04/2011 at 10:52 Ronin Jellyfish says:
Can’t wait to plough through the achievements….
11/04/2011 at 10:54 Kefren says:
Please tell me you can turn off the pre-pubescent achievement notifications…
11/04/2011 at 12:26 DeanLearner says:
I like my achievements like I like my women. On the internet in a form that lets me brag about them to others easily. Ideally exportable as a CSV, as well as instantly reportable via twitter, just like my women*.
*maynothavewomen
11/04/2011 at 12:26 buzzmong says:
Those sorts of weather effects and the quick changes reminded me of Stalker. Rather atmospheric.
11/04/2011 at 15:28 Tulse says:
Minecraft has long featured predatory and voyeuristic creatures known as ‘Creepers’, and now includes sexually-explicit achievements, such as ‘Getting Wood’. Here at Fox News we feel duty bound to highlight the link between this pornographic filth and instances of real life rape.
11/04/2011 at 16:06 lazysuperhero says:
I just bought Minecraft, gona start playing.
Excited :D
11/04/2011 at 17:48 Urael says:
As a native to fair Britannia I welcome the chance to grumble about all manner of gloomy weather conditions in the world of Minecraft. I also greatly anticipate spending a solid month in full on-grouse mode at a few inches of harmless snow, steadfastly oblivious to it’s crisp natural beauty.
Hurrah for being british!
11/04/2011 at 18:48 Italia says:
I can’t believe the amount of follow this game has. It’s like a step back on runescape…Maybe if I was 10?
11/04/2011 at 20:56 Grygus says:
Runescape wasn’t single player. It also didn’t allow you to run a server just for you and your friends. It was also a completely different kind of game, and your comparison makes no sense to me. Are you just talking about graphics?
12/04/2011 at 13:13 bastronaut says:
You don’t have to believe it, you just have to accept it, because it’s a fact. What does it mean to be unable to grasp facts?
I recommend a steady diet of surprises which challenge your woefully inadequate preconceptions.
12/04/2011 at 03:22 Olivaw says:
Hopefully they will add a different sound for rain, instead of just using the flowing water sound. The sound of rain is an important element of it’s ambiance!
12/04/2011 at 03:25 x25killa says:
Man, I remember the snowy map I used to have that snowed flakes all the time until an update stopped it :(
12/04/2011 at 06:36 TomEllinson says:
Achievement unlocked: Getting Wood.
All thanks to this video.
Also: So…if you hit a cow…it’s starts raining?
What if you hit it again? Will it stop?
12/04/2011 at 17:35 Zorganist says:
At 2:44, are all the animals gathered underneath the tree by coincidence or design? It’d be nice to have passive mobs seeking shelter in rainstorms.
And if lighting starts fires, I demand a lighting conductor of some kind, even having iron blocks attract lighting would suffice, anything to stop my wooden buildings from burning down in storms.