By Quintin Smith on June 13th, 2011 at 10:40 am.
Here we go. In an E3 roundup on his blog, Notch has announced that the upcoming 1.7 patch for Minecraft will be the ‘Adventure Update’, and will be the first step along the road of turning Minecraft into… well, an actual game.
Lest we forget, the Minecraft that we all know and love is still in beta, and is really only a test bed for everything that Notch has planned for it. More details after the jump.
Here’s the announcement in all of its terse glory.
* We are working on Minecraft Beta 1.7, which I’m referring to as the “adventure update”. We’re keeping the details secret so people can get surprises. The idea with this update is to flesh out the game a bit, making it reward exploration and combat more. Assuming we like them in play testing, pistons are coming in 1.7.
I want it. I want it so bad. I think the only person who wants it more than me is John, and we’ve spent the morning huddling together in one of the parapets of Castle Shotgun like two lonesome, bald koalas, whispering endless nothings like “I’m sure it’ll be good. It has to be good.”
Even if this ends up being nothing more than adding some extra-tough monsters and a few trophies into the game, I’m sure every Minecraft player worth his or her salt should tremble at the prospect of building a kickass trophy room.
1.7 will bring the first bit of mod support to the game, too.
* We’re starting the modding support on a small scale with 1.7. We’ll be giving the source code out to a very VERY small group of people before the release of 1.7. We’ll use those experiences to work out the final details, then we’ll get the modding api out as soon as possible after 1.7 has been released.
You may have also heard last week that Minecraft is coming to the Xbox and Xperia Play. Notch has got some good news for PC gamers there, too.
I will be the game designer on both new Minecraft titles, but I won’t be involved in the programming as I’m focused on the PC version of Minecraft.
Hooray! Stick with us, Notch. We treat you right.
13/06/2011 at 10:43 McDan says:
Every time I play this game I get deliriously happy thinking that it’s still the beta. The adventure mode is something I’ve been waiting a while for as well, should be fun.
13/06/2011 at 10:49 CMaster says:
Adventure update. No statements by Notch yet that it will contain Adventure Mode.
13/06/2011 at 10:59 McDan says:
Darn, my hopeful mind messing things up again. But will it have dinosaurs?
13/06/2011 at 12:16 ceson says:
There´s a mod for that!
Haven’t tried it yet, but it looks kind of fun.
13/06/2011 at 10:43 poop says:
tbh id prefer it if notch worked exclusively on the xbla version and left the pc to someone more…
13/06/2011 at 10:45 skinlo says:
I wouldn’t.
13/06/2011 at 10:44 Sp4rkR4t says:
I love Notch in the face so much.
13/06/2011 at 10:45 tripwired says:
dig dig dig, yay iron, dig dig dig, OH SHIIII – RANCOR!
*4 hours later*
/drags Rancor head back to castle and mounts above the fireplace…
13/06/2011 at 16:03 Torgen says:
yes, please.
14/06/2011 at 07:20 Splynter says:
You’d seriously take a rancor as a trophy before incorporating it into your castle defenses/prisoner population thinning solutions?
13/06/2011 at 10:46 Groove says:
Hurray! More rare stuff worth searching for please. Then I’ll never tire of minecraft and I can play it foreveeeerrrrrr
13/06/2011 at 10:49 CMaster says:
I’m honestly not convinced that Notch has anything “planned” for the future of Minecraft really, based on the scatterbrained way features get implemented and then half-finished. Maybe one day he’ll do a “finishing what I started” update or develop an actual plan for what things he really wants from the game. More likely is that we’ll keep getting a scattershot of cool but underdeveloped ideas until Notch decides he wants to move on to the next project.
13/06/2011 at 10:53 Zorganist says:
I’m pretty sure that when Notch started Mojang as a proper company, they laid out a plan for Minecraft, based on his ideas, and what the rest of the team thought should go in. I think all of the ideas are already there, they just implement them in quite a haphazard way.
13/06/2011 at 10:59 CMaster says:
If they did that, then they’ve ignored it ever since. Almost everything new has been Notch going “oohh, I just tried this” on Twitter. There’s still a massive pile of half-done stuff, and what is recorded by the wiki as “upcoming features” because Notch has said he will make them almost invariable never happens.
13/06/2011 at 11:04 12kill4 says:
I’m honestly not convinced that CMaster has anything “planned” for his comments about Minecraft’s development, based upon the scatterbrained way he makes bizarre judgements about the largely unknown practices of a group of designers he also doesn’t know. Maybe one day he’ll do a “finishing what I started” update and add some substance to his statements. More likely he will just continue being that dude who thinks its cool to be Mr Internet McSnarky-Pants and lamely criticise a developer, who has demonstrated extrordinary skill and creativity, for his unconventional -though clearly very successful- methods.
13/06/2011 at 11:08 Ziv says:
Read through his blog, he has some answers for you. The studio’s process is something like this: They have an overall plan of what must get into the final game in 11/11/11 and they have extra time laid out beforehand for trying new things, if you plan a game design too strictly and not experiment you get crappy games, game design is all about tweaking all the time and gaining feedback from testers (and this is where the paid beta approach works).
13/06/2011 at 11:10 DeepSleeper says:
Wait, “11/11/11″ is when he thinks it’s going to be finished?
That’s… no. Push it back a year, please.
13/06/2011 at 11:10 skinlo says:
Well if what we have now is the result of the ‘scatter brained’ approach, then I am happy he continues on that path.
13/06/2011 at 11:17 Urael says:
@CMaster:…and the problem is? Maybe this is simply the way the man works. Flashes of random inspiration that distract him from the more tedious aspects of coding. I think he’s earned the right to choose whatever method of development he wants to follow. Grousing about it isn’t going to make what you want happen any sooner.
13/06/2011 at 11:24 CMaster says:
@12Kill4
You seem to think I don’t like the game. I do, a lot. I play it a lot. For the work of just one person it’s pretty impressive too. I certainly don’t say like some people “mod developers have done A, B, C..Q and R, why hasn’t Notch yet”. There’s an awful lot more mod devs out there, they don’t have to worry about making something that will put people off the game, and they also worry about bugs and compatibility even less.
@Ziv
Yeah, I’ve read pretty much all his blog articles. I’ve read about how they planned to work. I just really don’t believe they carry it through. If they really followed scrums, I’d expect to see more coherent and finished additions, not the half-implemented stuff we get. Same for if they really followed a plan for what is intended. Instead we get a big pile of “it seemed like a good idea at the time, I’ll finish it off later” stuff, which is a mixed bag of fun and useless.
@DeepSleeper
No, that’s when he’ll arbitrarily call it “release day” and bump up the price. Under most definitions current Minecraft is still most definitely Alpha (new features being added all the while, often bringing with them a big handful of bugs). He’s said that new features will carry on being added post “launch” as well, which is good for players. The progression through states however seems to be more about doing something that sounds like more conventional software development when in reality we have something different. I imagine MC will actually be “done” when Notch gets bored of working on it and feels that he has personally done enough for existing players. This may or may not be related to when sales slow down.
13/06/2011 at 11:30 Zeewolf says:
I sort of agree with CMaster. Obviously there’s some kind of a plan, but the seemingly completely random way new features gets implemented (and often, as CMaster points out, left there either half-finished or without any sort of usefulness whatsoever (see: the nether)) suggests that notch starts each week by throwing a set of dice to see what he should do next.
That said, I like the sound of the adventure update, and I’m really happy he’s finally planning to implement the pistons. Though with my luck he’ll suddenly decide to spend a few weeks implementing a new kind of clouds or something instead… :-)
13/06/2011 at 11:33 CMaster says:
@zeewolf
Pistons have already been implemented by the sometime second programmer on Minecraft, Jeb. Their actual inclusion is apparently still dependent on internal playtesting.
13/06/2011 at 11:34 Urael says:
…new kind of clouds – w00t! :D
13/06/2011 at 11:43 CMaster says:
Better clouds would be nice. Rather irritating to be stood in a tower when a cloud drifts through the walls. I guess that’s a good example of how in a sandbox game like this, while there are almost certainly some elements that are better to work on than others (I’d say pistons over clouds is a good example) there’s almost nothing that’s a bad idea to work on improving/expanding.
13/06/2011 at 15:12 Urthman says:
The only reason you think Notch’s approach implementing stuff is at all remarkable is because most developers don’t let you watch over their shoulder while they work and test the latest builds.
If I were Notch listening to all these complaints, I’d say, “Fine. You don’t like the order I’m doing work? No more releases until everything’s done.”
13/06/2011 at 18:26 lightswitch37 says:
Zeewolf said:
“…either half-finished or without any sort of usefulness whatsoever (see: the nether))…”
Disagree with you on this point. The addition of netherrack with it’s flammable characteristics, glowstone as a new light source, and soul sand created new possibilities for builders and trap makers.
Also, I actually use the Nether as a fast travel area as it was intended. It cuts the travel time between my various build areas tremendously, at least until I figure out how to send minecarts up tall hills.
13/06/2011 at 10:54 johnpeat says:
Much as I love Minecraft, the idea that it’s still “BETA” is a bit of nonsense really…
It’s perhaps appropriate that such an unconventional game is being developed in an unconventional manner BUT you could also say that Mojang are using the whole ‘BETA’ thing as an excuse for ignoring some stuff they really should have done in favour of doing the bits they feel like…
I realise “wearing hats made of money” makes you immune from caring what your customers think, but I think prioritising making Minecraft more accessible to people who don’t spent hours every day with their noses buried in Wikis would be a better ‘update’ than anything I’ve seen them suggest for a while…
Minecraft has enormous potential – we’ve seen what it can do – but the level of effort required to get into it is daft. The ‘Achievements’ thing they put in is a step in the right direction but it’s about 1% of what’s needed (it stops actually being helpful almost instantly!!)
Just my 10p ;)
13/06/2011 at 11:29 Urael says:
You start by claiming the game isn’t a true beta – using that to imply that Mojang are either lazy or unfocused or both – but then go on to describe what still needs to be done to the game, in your opinion…I would have thought that a piece of software that clearly needs more coding development work is the very definition of a beta product.
As for the money-hat accusation, please explain why any developer should listen to a snarling, hateful, ungrateful throng of fans such as Minecraft has, or even people who comment such as you have in this thread. All the work they’ve done to bring the game to life and for their efforts people like you fire off unwarranted and baseless accusations.
Here, have your ten pence back and go phone someone who actually wants to hear this tripe.
13/06/2011 at 14:05 johnpeat says:
@Urael – someone got out of bed on the wrong side this morning (or did you stay up all night playing Minecraft?) :)
I’ve no idea what a ‘true BETA’ might mean (and I suspect neither do you) but as a programmer I know that a game which has been around for 2 years and buyable for well over a year is not a BETA in any meaningful sense.
I believe it’s “BETA” status says quite a bit about the developers and their approach to their product /customers/the media – whether that’s a good or bad thing, I’ll leave upto other people to decide but it’s clear that some people (this article’s writer, for example) view the product differently because it’s a ‘BETA’…
Anyone who’s developed a game will know that the hard part is never creating all the fun stuff – it’s bringing it all together into a coherent form, documenting it, putting all the tutorial stuff in for new players and releasing it as a ‘finished product’.
We could all sit around making cool shit happen – hell I do far more of that than I should, there are dozens of projects on this PC which will never get beyond me playing with them – but when you take people’s money I think there is a bit of responsibility to deliver an actual, finished product – however much you don’t like doing that.
13/06/2011 at 18:31 Pointless Puppies says:
If you’ve paid any attention to the gaming industry the past couple of years you’d know “BETAs” in gaming aren’t BETAs in the formal sense any. The vast majority of the time (especially in mainstream releases), game “BETAs” are nothing more than a half-demo, half-advertisement affair where almost nothing gets changed between that BETA testing and release. So why single out and complain about MC specifically when tons of other developers are doing not-BETA BETAs?
Furthermore, both you and I know MC isn’t a traditional game by any means, both gameplay and development speaking. Buying a game while still under development is something most people who bought Minecraft haven’t tried before.
The game will be “officially released” in 11/11/11. Don’t you think it’s a little premature to call this game “unfinished” in a derogatory manner? Because I’ll have you know it literally IS unfinished. Would you complain about how ANY game, be it Minecraft, Terraria, or Battlefield 3, is being developed if you somehow were able to keep up with exactly what features are implemented and when?
Methinks you need to gain some perspective. How about we get to 11/11/11 before you start whining that Notch “isn’t taking responsibility for making a finished product”, eh?
13/06/2011 at 18:59 RandomGameR says:
Beta means that a piece of software is feature complete. In that way, the game is technically in Alpha. On the other hand, since people pay for it, who cares?
13/06/2011 at 10:57 MuscleHorse says:
While this is true to a certain extent, at least he isn’t disorganised on the level of Toady of Dwarf Fortress, which is forever destined to a broken, mostly unplayable game loaded with potential.
13/06/2011 at 10:58 MuscleHorse says:
Whoops, meant that to be a reply to CMaster.
13/06/2011 at 11:12 slM_agnvox says:
I am having more fun reading the new Dwarf Fort updates than playing Dwarf Fort.
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/
Necromancers and vampires now in world gen, huh?
Haven’t played much myself in awhile and Is a shame Toady never got his hats made of money, but his game is still fascinating whether you are playing it or imagining its potential. Never gave Minecraft as much of a fair shake but the point of this reply being that I am very tolerant of rambling development strategies and support their ramblingness.
13/06/2011 at 12:55 KillahMate says:
If Toady wasn’t terminally allergic to user friendly UI he would have gotten his hats of money by now, and then some. He always says “there’s more important work than polishing the UI”. NO THERE ISN’T. IF YOU ALLOW PEOPLE TO PLAY YOUR GAME THEY WILL GIVE YOU MONEY.
In my mind it’s the best proof (even more than the price difference) that Notch is making a game for people to play, and Toady is making a personal hobby project for himself.
13/06/2011 at 13:19 TillEulenspiegel says:
Dwarf Fortress is hugely intellectually interesting as a simulation. It does slightly fail as a game, even if you get over the UI. I seem to find that just as I get used to micromanaging my group of dwarves, another batch of migrants shows up and I have to deal with them. More than fifteen or so just isn’t fun for me, even with Dwarf Therapist. So I’ll quit and start over.
The economy would be my first priority in making a playable game.
Guess I’ll just keep reading and enjoying the updates too.
13/06/2011 at 14:22 Consumatopia says:
Looking at all the helper apps people make for DF, I don’t think Toady would even have to make a UI to get the money hats. Just modularize it–put the UI in a client that talks to a server that runs all the game logic. Publish the protocol by which they talk to each other. A couple months later, someone would release a Minecraft mod that acts as a UI for Dwarf Fortress. I mean, look at something like Stonesense that works by reverse-engineering the internal memory of DF, and imagine what a project that didn’t have to jump through ridiculous hoops like that would accomplish.
Of course, that would mean going back and rewriting code to separate the simulation logic and interface code into two programs. Which would be kind of a hassle. It’s probably a lot more fun to add new weird things to the simulation than it is to go back and rewrite all that junk. If he’d rather have fun than make money hats, that’s kind of awesome. But the demand for a deep social/economic/construction/mining/seigeing simulation with a reasonable interface is still out there, and if Toady doesn’t fulfill it, I hope someone else does.
13/06/2011 at 16:02 TillEulenspiegel says:
I’m sure Dwarf Fortress will eventually spawn an entire genre.
But the most fascinating, unique aspect of DF is perhaps the world generator. Its ability to create stories is incredible, like the secrets of necromancy being learned from a demon then passed down through the ages. If only you could expose some of that depth in the game.
It seems almost good enough to randomly generate RPG worlds that are so, so much more than your typical roguelike.
13/06/2011 at 11:12 Davee says:
I am indeed hopeful about this patch as well! I haven’t played Minecraft for a good while due to the lack of anything meaningful to do. This might just change that.
13/06/2011 at 11:32 Urael says:
Have you tried any of the mods? I recently installed Finite Water and have been having terrific fun with it. First building a system of fillable/drainable pools for my hillside mansion, then in figuring out a way to safely explore flooded underground cave systems! Exploring caves is a damn sight trickier to do when you have to worry about seeing and breathing!
13/06/2011 at 11:44 CMaster says:
Does the finite water mod implement any kind of evaporation/precipitation system? Because while on the one hand I think that kind of thing would be really neat, the fact that it means the end to natural flowing water saddens me a little.
Edit: Yes, it seems it does to some extent. Interesting.
13/06/2011 at 12:18 Urael says:
The author of the mod is apparently working on rivers that will flow. Frankly, in my opinion, Minecraft’s default implementation of water is just silly.
13/06/2011 at 12:38 Batman says:
Agreed. The illogical way water works (infinite water from just two bucketfulls is possible) is probably my main dislike of minecraft. I will have to give this mod a go, though presumably installing it will prevent me going on public servers.
13/06/2011 at 18:37 lightswitch37 says:
But it allows you to create WATERFALLS! LOTS of WATERFALLS! EVERYWHERE! YAY!
*splashes around in nearest waterfall*
In all seriousness though, for everyone with a thorough understanding of fluid mechanics I’m sure a realistic water model will be much more fun.
Actually, I wouldn’t mind something more realistic at all as long as it came with a way to pump it up to higher levels.
13/06/2011 at 11:37 Wilson says:
The modding support is exciting stuff. Can’t wait for that.
13/06/2011 at 12:07 Kill_The_Drive says:
as I’m focused on the PC version of Minecraft
Focused on spending the money and kicking back.
13/06/2011 at 12:18 Kaira- says:
I recently got back to Minecraft, last played… I don’t know, 1.5? Now that there are some real ways of transportation without using mods to “cheat”, it is quite enjoyable. I just wonder how long it will take for 1.7.x to become playable, as most of the time these updates seem to break loadsa stuff and taking a week or two of patching to become playable. Oh well.
As for the working pace… they’ve picked it up pretty nice, I think. Much better than when they had founded the company and pumped out some lackluster updates. Now they come out much faster and are actually worthwhile (and broken for a week or two). But, if they intend to add most of the upcoming features before 11/11/11, they’d better get busy.
13/06/2011 at 12:38 Teddy Leach says:
Thanks, Notch. In 1.8, could you please incorporate furniture into the game?
13/06/2011 at 12:42 Coins says:
This, so much.
13/06/2011 at 13:06 jon_hill987 says:
I’ll take water that isn’t stupid over furniture any day.
13/06/2011 at 16:35 Koozer says:
YES. Fluids are incredibly annoying and tiresome as is.
13/06/2011 at 13:08 airtekh says:
Ahhh, now this might be the thing that lures me back to Minecraft. I haven’t played it in months.
13/06/2011 at 13:37 nickylee says:
I’m highly interested in the modding support.
13/06/2011 at 13:39 Jetsetlemming says:
“Hooray! Stick with us, Notch. We treat you right.” I honestly don’t think he has a choice, given the technical nature of Minecraft. Almost every minecraft knockoff/inspired game/quasi-port (just recently I played a Minecraft esque homebrew game for PSP) is more technically solid than Minecraft itself.
13/06/2011 at 13:44 bluebottle says:
I’ll admit to being a little hesitant about the adventure update. I like the way Minecraft feels at the moment (basically a sandbox build sim with a scattering of game elements), and if you go on a lot of SMP servers you can see, from the way most people have it configured, that a lot of people like this too. Part of me worries that the more ‘game’ is put into Minecraft, the less unique it’ll be, and the closer it’ll shift to the usual kill and collect format that tends to dominate games.
Still, if I’m able to focus almost exclusively on building, and the adventure elements don’t interfere, then I’ll be happy (even more happy if there’s a couple more attractive block types to build with).
Modding API will make me very happy, too.
13/06/2011 at 13:50 oceanclub says:
The sense of entitlement some people have over a €10 game that has presumably given them dozens of hours of enjoyment is, quite frankly, bizarre.
P.
13/06/2011 at 15:03 Wilson says:
@oceanclub – It’s not always entitlement. Sometimes it’s just people having a good old whinge about something they care about which isn’t how they would like it to be in a perfect world. People will always do that, and it has nothing to do with whether they are entitled to do so or not. I agree that sometimes it will be people feeling entitled, but not always.
It’s just a symptom of how much people like the game – if people didn’t care about the game, they wouldn’t moan, but as they do, they will.
13/06/2011 at 15:30 Consumatopia says:
Is this some kind of British thing? Does “sense of entitlement” in English translate to “opinion about something they’re interested in” in American?
13/06/2011 at 16:03 steviesteveo says:
I think we did pretty well to get this far in a minecraft comment thread before someone started talking about a “sense of entitlement”.
I think people complaining about other people’s sense of entitlement has to be one of the more annoying things about minecraft (and I’ve had creepers spawn in underwater structures).
@ Consumatopia
I think it might be more a generational thing — the unstated problem with the sense of entitlement is that it is not earned. You see a lot of older Americans complaining about how young people feel entitled. I think it’s quite a tiresome complaint, frankly, because it is absolutely “talking about things when I think you’re not allowed to”.
13/06/2011 at 16:07 Vinraith says:
Some people seem to feel they’re entitled to a comment thread free of opinions they disagree with.
13/06/2011 at 16:25 Wilson says:
@Vinraith – Hehe, yeah. It’s a similar thing when people talk about fanboys or whatever. Sure, sometimes people are being a bit like that, but more often it seems that people just don’t like hearing opposing opinions. If you really think someone really is being entitled/a fanboy, just don’t reply to them, because you aren’t going to change their mind, and you probably will annoy a load of people who might have otherwise been receptive to your opinion.
13/06/2011 at 13:50 DeanLearner says:
I always feel kind of let down by Minecraft. When I bought it, it just about worked on my laptop, since then, it has run like a dog. Each time we get to a new 1.X version, I try again, and it’s even worse while at the same time hearing about Notch going to the playboy mansion, e3 and other stuff almost certainly due to the money I spent alone.
In fairness I could probably stop following him on twitter, but I’m very british and I like having something to complain about.
13/06/2011 at 22:16 Stephen Roberts says:
Yeah my minecraft is crashalatic too. It’s really ground me down to the point where… well it’s like my own personal world of peaceful exploration is waiting for me but I simply can’t get to and enjoy it because of the crash-fest. I’ve reinstalled various Javas and Minecrafts multiple times to attempt to assuage the problem but with no success. I don’t run any mods either.
14/06/2011 at 04:13 steviesteveo says:
I found this current version to be incredibly crashtastic. I’m thoroughly disappointed with it.
13/06/2011 at 13:51 Turin Turambar says:
So Minecraft is going to be Terraria’ed at last? Good.
13/06/2011 at 15:20 Urael says:
Bad.
13/06/2011 at 16:38 Koozer says:
Good!
13/06/2011 at 14:04 Merelia says:
I hope this update will include some fixes. I haven’t been able to play mincecraft for some time now thanks to memory leaks that the last patches introduced.