By Quintin Smith on June 15th, 2011 at 6:03 pm.
Notch has released a video of the pistons that’ll feature in Minecraft update 1.7, aka the Adventure Update. I’m well aware that this only barely scrapes into the category of “news”, but then I realised how easy it would be to come up with a headline pun and that was that.
Besides, after watching this video I’m now convinced that I (finally) want to start fannying around with elaborate redstone circuity. Just look at this.
2:40 is the good bit. Also, the cow abuse at 4:00 reassures me. If the boys at Mojang aren’t immune to the temptation of giving the odd cow a slap, there’s surely hope for the rest of us.
15/06/2011 at 18:05 pirusu says:
Quinns, you have the best puns.
15/06/2011 at 20:14 westyfield says:
He’s the pungeon master.
16/06/2011 at 11:43 Inph says:
westyfield, you have the worst puns.
19/06/2011 at 04:58 will says:
I’m sure that you just can’t take such pun-ishment.
15/06/2011 at 18:06 Kaira- says:
Well, Minecraft definetly needs more new mechanics. I’d especially love me some windmills and/or watermills to generate electiricty-like things for powering elevators and whatnot.
And hopefully this time the patch isn’t totally broken for a week.
15/06/2011 at 18:07 Zaboomafoozarg says:
Indeed.
Low-brow profanity pun?
Not a pun for me,
Indeed.
15/06/2011 at 18:11 Torgen says:
And here I haven’t even looked in Minecraft’s direction for months.
This might change that. We’re a steam engine away from paddlewheelers and locomotives.
15/06/2011 at 18:12 Zelius says:
At first I wasn’t that excited about these pistons. Until I saw that elaborate gate. I’ll definitely be trying to build something similar.
15/06/2011 at 18:16 steviesteveo says:
2:19~ is pretty good too. That opens up quite a few options.
15/06/2011 at 21:42 RC-1290'Dreadnought' says:
You might say it is the doorway to many possibilities.
16/06/2011 at 02:32 Mr_Initials says:
It could be the entrance of new ideas
15/06/2011 at 18:17 Marijn says:
SURELY that should be “Getting Pist On”?
15/06/2011 at 18:23 Colthor says:
Better piston than pissed off.
16/06/2011 at 10:22 max pain says:
You mean pissed ON?
15/06/2011 at 18:21 Rinox says:
Finally, fully operational (and remote-controlled) dams :D
Now I can fulfill my dream of building a giant stone skull in front of my castle’s main viewing room, with lava running from its eyes and mouth at the flick of a switch from my lounging chair.
15/06/2011 at 18:31 Napalm Sushi says:
A Minecraft version of the Boatmurdered Defence System?
Now all we need are elephants.
15/06/2011 at 19:59 Teddy Leach says:
Hell yes, Napalm.
18/06/2011 at 14:17 Kdansky says:
What could possibly go wrong?!
18/06/2011 at 18:22 silverhammermba says:
Initiate operation Fuck The World.
15/06/2011 at 18:29 Decimae says:
Some other things hidden in the video(semi-spoilers):
- Torches on fences(and probably simple stackable fences)
- New cobblestone textures
- New brick textures
In the changelog screenshot there’s also a mention of XP orbs, which can also be partly seen in one of the colored lightning screenshots, and there’s a mention of huge mushrooms.
15/06/2011 at 19:12 Zorganist says:
One of the other things pointed out on twitter was that the censored changelist contained the line ” – Removed herobrine”, and since two negatives make a positive…
15/06/2011 at 18:32 razgon says:
I know how to build stone and wood houses, and dig, and make torches and weapons – thats it.
Honestly, I have zero interest in the direction Minecraft is going. I’d love it to evolve, but just addind more stuff to build isn’t really the way(for me).
Adding life to the world, npcs and the long promised adventure mode though, would be interesting
15/06/2011 at 18:49 Aedrill says:
This is the right direction. Until now Mincecraft was boring and static, pistons add interaction. Finally, my Chamber of Riddles will look exactly how it should.
15/06/2011 at 20:19 mwoody says:
What is this “long promised adventure mode,” out of curiosity? He’s adding more reasons to explore – these pistons are a small part of what’s called the “adventure patch,” after all – but I’ve never seen a reason for that to be a separate mode from survival. What would be different?
15/06/2011 at 20:40 Aedrill says:
I have absolutely no idea. I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Hope it’s something more interesting than simply adding new mob and new drop.
15/06/2011 at 22:03 Kaira- says:
@mwoody
If I remember correctly, the adventure mode would include explorable dungeons, loot and would be generally more RPG-y.
Now, we shall just wait for Wizardry and tell us how it could never be RPG-y.
16/06/2011 at 15:55 PleasingFungus says:
Adventure Mode – as distinct from an ‘adventure update’ – is a mode in which you can’t dig. The idea being that other people would create dungeons / puzzles (in Minecraft, normally), and then you could go through and solve them without being able to just demolish the entire building by hand.
It has indeed been planned for a while, but I can see why it’s not the very highest priority.
17/06/2011 at 06:07 mwoody says:
Ahhh, gotcha, that does make sense. I could see it being sort of interesting, maybe, but only once the base engine’s ability to produce procedural villages/castles/dungeons is in.
15/06/2011 at 18:42 inertia says:
I think I’m in love again.
15/06/2011 at 18:50 Koozer says:
yeah, great. Now fix the bloody fluids.
15/06/2011 at 19:03 steviesteveo says:
I never really understood the hate for the fluid physics. Yes, it’s not realistic but it’s intrinsically minecrafty – water is a block.
15/06/2011 at 19:06 Urael says:
An unmanageable block. Filling a pool shouldn’t be such a goddam chore to get a flat, even surface. Finite Liquid is the way forwards (albeit some flooding of caves does occur).
15/06/2011 at 19:57 enobayram says:
I think the fluid physics in terraria is realistic and simple enough at the same time. OK, maybe they could also define pressure, so that connected liquids in parallel containers level. It should be easy to implement, if the surrounding block has less pressure (taking into account the height), move water there…
Aside from all the quest, NPC etc. game-like stuff, which should be implemented as soon as possible. If they were to ask my opinion on what should be implemented first in terms of game mechanics, I would also vouch for liquids.
15/06/2011 at 22:05 steviesteveo says:
I think BT’s attitude to broadband rollout is not fit for purpose in the UK.
Wait, I thought this was a minecraft thread.
16/06/2011 at 09:08 Koojav says:
Fix for water in minecraft :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhPHGINYcl4
Minecraft Finite Liquid Mod.
I’ll come back to playing Minecraft when this is incorporated in the core game engine.
15/06/2011 at 19:01 man-eater chimp says:
Haha I see what you did thar.
15/06/2011 at 19:08 Coins says:
Floodgate! Gatehouses! Conveyor Belts! Flash flood for farming! The possibilities are (nearly) limitless!
15/06/2011 at 19:12 Sardaukar says:
Quoth Bit, Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
15/06/2011 at 19:15 Felixader says:
OMG! Finally! Giant Dwarfen Gates, here i come!
15/06/2011 at 19:19 Sardaukar says:
Somehow, someway, I am going to build a tower that unfolds from the ground, from 60~ units of depth to 60~ units of height.
15/06/2011 at 19:33 steviesteveo says:
I’m keeping everything crossed that pistons can also push pistons.
15/06/2011 at 20:12 Teddy Leach says:
Well, there are already videos on YouTube of self-building and self-repairing houses using pistons, so what you envisage would only take a bit of Dwarvern ingenuity.
15/06/2011 at 20:14 pepper says:
Yes they can, check 2:55 in the video!
15/06/2011 at 21:39 Torgen says:
Pistons in pistons.
Pistception.
15/06/2011 at 19:21 Davee says:
Think of the dungeons and traps that can be constructed with this! Can’t wait for more news, this update will surely get me back into the game ;)
15/06/2011 at 19:32 Mordsung says:
Finally, I can create traps of death for my friends beyond my land mines.
15/06/2011 at 19:43 geldonyetich says:
Pistons look cool, but I’m not sure their inclusion alone would entail calling it the “Adventure” update.
15/06/2011 at 19:52 skurmedel says:
Just think they threw ‘em in there because they’ve been talking about them for a while. It’s quite a requested feature. They don’t seem to have too much parameters though. I would like to build a giant elevator, but if they only push one block in height, it’s going to take a lot of pistons. You could build a shaft and flood it with water though… very Indiana Jones.
15/06/2011 at 21:44 Baines says:
You should be able to mix pistons and water for an elevator. Have one piston open a path for a water supply to fill the shaft and a second piston to open a drain.
From the video, although it looks silly, you don’t even need to use a sticky piston with a block attached as a plug, as water is apparently magically stopped by even the shaft of an extended piston.
You can probably build all sorts of things with pistons once you start having pistons themselves activating and deactivating further piston circuits.
15/06/2011 at 22:48 jrod says:
no see you misunderstand… its the “adventures with pistons” update.
16/06/2011 at 08:35 Zorganist says:
Currently water is also magically blocked by open trapdoors, so I think I’ll let that slide for now. It helps to make things more compact, anyhow.
15/06/2011 at 19:47 Carra says:
I now want to play more minecraft!
Some great new ideas. Open-able doors, disposable bridges, create waterfalls by pushing a button,… Can’t wait to see what some of the crazy internetters will create with this.
15/06/2011 at 20:00 Teddy Leach says:
I… I still want tables and chairs.
15/06/2011 at 21:32 Zarunil says:
Your demands are unbelievable. Tables AND chairs?! Where I come from, we’re lucky if we have some mental institution to sit on, and we place our food on straitjacket. Who took my sedative?!
15/06/2011 at 20:14 mwoody says:
My brother and I had an agreement: when they implement floodgates, we’d return to Minecraft.
Back we go!
15/06/2011 at 22:46 jrod says:
what’cha guys gona do with dem floodgates?? huh? huh?
15/06/2011 at 20:16 Andy_Panthro says:
Very nice!
That door thing… that’s what I want to make. Or some sort of creeper-crusher.
Odd looking at the default textures though (I made my own, which I guess will need to be updated again for 1.7, and I only just finished updating it for 1.6.6! visit http://www.ultimaaiera.com for details! /shamelessplug)
15/06/2011 at 20:20 Squire says:
Pistons!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FAN-TASTIC!!!!!!!!!! Oh wait, I’m going to go fight a giant segmented death-worm right now, in Terraria, the game with THINGS TO DO.
15/06/2011 at 23:23 theallmightybob says:
Well i did everything in tererria, Back to minecraft were the building stuff dosent suck!
really though both games are awesome. but the building stuff in tererria is so bland. tererria for mindless slashing minecraft for building awesome stuff. hopefully the adventure update bridges the gap.
15/06/2011 at 20:27 frymaster says:
minor nitpick: jeb is spelt J E B not N O T C H :P
15/06/2011 at 20:40 MajorManiac says:
Finally. I can now have moving drawbridges. :D
15/06/2011 at 21:28 MythArcana says:
And after three weeks of no MineBawks updates, we finally get a massive Adventurer patch – A PISTON. WOW! Take her away Microsoft, that’s all she wrote.
15/06/2011 at 23:47 Zeewolf says:
What sort of an adventure update would it be if they spoiled the adventure content before the update was released?
Pistons are only a part of this update. Something they’ve been working on for a while, and something me and many others are really looking forward to.
15/06/2011 at 21:36 Zarunil says:
I plan on using pistons to push my planet out of orbit and into the sun.
16/06/2011 at 15:49 Malibu Stacey says:
Newton’s laws of motion bet you won’t.
15/06/2011 at 22:44 jrod says:
sticky piston + cactus + pressure plate = spikey death?
One can only hope… minecraft doesn’t yet allow for nearly enough traps!
16/06/2011 at 07:50 Kollega says:
Holmes versus Moriarty! Aristotle versus… MASHY SPIKE-PLATE!
Seriously though, pistons and hatches powered by elaborate redstone circuitry will probably make for an experience not unlike Portal 2 with it’s dynamic panels. I’ll certainly try to make something like that.
15/06/2011 at 22:47 ribidons says:
Really glad they scrapped the six-metal-per-piston recipe from the mod.
I guess it’ll be impossible to create a properly discrete self-propelled entity with pistons, unless there is some surface that pistons can push themselves off from. No self-propelled howitzer for us yet. Still, floodgates for blue and red goop have got be a good thing, and the auto-farming possibilities are pretty endless, assuming there’s a way to make them reliably smash blocks.
16/06/2011 at 00:45 mwoody says:
Random bit no one has commented on yet that I’ve seen: he uses a slimeball to contruct a sticky piston. So it looks like slimes are coming back, finally.
16/06/2011 at 02:04 hammedhaaret says:
were they ever gone?!?!
think I remember finding a couple not too long ago
16/06/2011 at 06:16 mwoody says:
I’ve never, ever seen one, but wow, the wiki claims they’re still in. And I spend 90% of my time at or near bedrock, too – that’s one damn rare mob.
16/06/2011 at 07:34 Ondrej says:
They are actually not at bedrock level, they spawn in a HUGE underground caves. First time I’ve met them, I was actually scared, but soon I KILLED THEM ALL.
16/06/2011 at 12:45 CMaster says:
Seen them a couple of times on our current server. Seen more evidence of them – loose slimeballs – than actual slimes though.
16/06/2011 at 04:11 feighnt says:
the pistons could be used to make a great pork factory – just get the pigs in place and squish until delicious.
… well, i suppose they’d need some way to lure pigs, or birth them… they need to add pig bait in the next update.
16/06/2011 at 07:32 Ondrej says:
But can you place the piston upside down a make a jumping sand castle?
16/06/2011 at 12:43 Coillscath says:
FUND IT.