Well, I suppose it’s not really secret anymore, since today we learn via Mr Hogarty, who is some kind of Minecraft community sentinel these days, that the current version of Minecraft contains a new super-tough mob, the Wither. It seems that the thread-headed aberration, which is super tough and fires bolts which can destroy blocks and “wither” you, is locked up in the code pending a forthcoming version of the game. Needless to say, enterprising Minecraftians have figured out how to spawn it in the game, so you can see it below. The video also summarises a bunch of other stuff from forthcoming Minecraft features like, uh, potplants.
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Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Posts Tagged ‘Minecraft’
Behold Minecraft’s Secret Mob, The Skull-Popping Wither
By Jim Rossignol on August 24th, 2012.
Z-eitgeisty
No End Of The World: MineZ Is Zombie Survival Minecraft
By Craig Pearson on August 4th, 2012.
I’d forgotten that Minecraft can be terrifying. It wasn’t until I was leading a conga line of zombies through a dark forest, hunger stinging me, dehydration stabbing away, that I remembered the fear it can instil. I say “remembered”, like I rationalised it. “Ah, yes. This feels familiar”. Really, I was screaming and swearing and panicking and clenching. MineZ sharpens Minecraft’s fangs
in the same way that DayZ turned Arma II feral.
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Minecon 2012 Will Be Held At Disneyland, Paris
By Jim Rossignol on August 3rd, 2012.
Following the success of Minecon in Las Vegas last year, the latest, greatest gathering of block lovers will take place in Europe, at Disneyland Paris. I went there once. Dragged along as surly teenager by my over-keen family. The highlight of my trip was our daily visit to the theme-hotel restaurant, whose chalkboard proudly proclaimed an offering of “Barbecued Children.” The French-speaking staff refused to understand the humour in their error, leading me and mum to speculate that it might not have been an error at all. It was Disneyland, after all.
Comedy announcement trailer below. Registrations start in a few weeks.
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Minecraft Updates To 1.3 With Adventure Mode, Trading
By John Walker on August 1st, 2012.
Minecraft updates today – it should be any moment now – with the feature I’ve been waiting for since it first appeared: Adventure Mode. They’re also adding a demo mode, that lets non-registered users play for five days per world in singleplayer, thre’s trading, a better inventory for Creative mode, tweaked how experience is distributed, added the ability to write 50 page books, more buildings for jungles and deserts, and included new blocks based around Emerald, pan-dimensional Ender Chests, a tripwire, and just so many more tweaks and fixes.
Primitive Coding: Minecraft Busts Out A New Block
By Richard Cobbett on July 27th, 2012.
On the face of it, “game adds new block type” might not seem a big deal. When that game is Minecraft though, and that block is a fully-programmable one that lets server admins take control of their worlds, things get interesting very, very quickly.
Land of the free
Patently Ridiculous: Notch vs Barry Bumgardner
By Alec Meer on July 23rd, 2012.
Annoying news: Uniloc, a company known for spurious software patent claims, is making a spurious software patent claim against Minecraft, as well as against EA, Gameloft, Halfbrick (Fruit Ninja), Laminar (X-Plane) and Square-Enix.
Wonderful news: the lawyer representing Uniloc is called Barry J. Bumgardner. I’m told that name doesn’t raise so much as a smile in the US (where it’s very common and derives from the German ‘Baumgartner’ rather than from someone who gardens in bums for a living), but I can assure you that, in the UK, it’s basically the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.
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Minecraft 1.3 Adding LAN, Adventure Mode In August
By Nathan Grayson on July 6th, 2012.
Scrolls just hit playable Alpha, and Notch is off programming computers inside of other computers (inside of other computers still, if life as we know it is in fact a nightmarish artificial construct), but Minecraft keeps on plugging away. LAN support – an art thought to be lost to the ravages of time and overbearing game services – was already a known quantity, but Mojang’s detailed gobs of other stuff that’ll be included as well. Sadly, an official modding API didn’t make the cut, but Adventure Mode sounds interesting. And hey, there’s also an NPC trading system, readable/writable books, and updated cookies!
I Dig It: Live Action Minecraft
By Adam Smith on June 21st, 2012.
Corridor Digital are wizards, harnessing their powers to make live action movie-magics based on them there vidjagames. They’ve tackled Minecraft before but their new short, Diamonds are Forever, could be their best yet. I do wish it concentrated more on the stunning blend of blocky vistas with real landscapes rather than becoming an action movie, but maybe expecting a travel documentary or an absurdist comedy about the tribulations of a life where interactions involve hitting things with other things really really fast was too much. It’s hugely impressive all the same. Enjoy.
Modern! Minecraft Adds ‘Local Area Network’ Support
By Alec Meer on June 18th, 2012.
A proposed new technology will allow personal computers within the same building to share data with each other via a physical cabled connection. The innovation is believed to allow significantly better speeds and latency than existing ‘online’ connections, as well as less data loss, no risk of interference from local ruffians attacking nearby phone company equipment, little to no need for opening router ports and no reliance on an error-prone remote server. While this new ‘local area network’ technology is rare and experimental for the time being, little-known PC game Minecraft will be one of the first titles to include it as an alternative to existing multiplayer connections.
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Knocking your block off
Block By Block: Modding Minecraft, Part 3
By Craig Pearson on May 5th, 2012.
This is the third and final part of our Minecraft modding guide. Previously: part 1, part 2.
*Roll of thunder, flash of lightning*. You thought these Minecraft mod walkthroughs were benign, helpful explorations into the fan contributions to Notch’s masterwork, didn’t you? Well I’ve been into the Moria-ish depths of the Minecraft mod world, you fools. I’ve seen what can be wrought from diamond, moulded with obsidian. You sent me there, with a pickaxe and nothing else! Down, down deeper down I went to the unseen depths, the lava glinting off the fear wrought sweat on my brow. I’ve stared into the flames and dust, and I brought something back.
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a number of options to fiddle with at you leisure
Block By Block: Modding Minecraft, Part 2
By Craig Pearson on April 29th, 2012.
In part ye firste I fiddled with Minecraft’s fundamentals. This time it’s the utilities that take the spotlight. I’d only planned on mentioning one or two in passing, but there’s a huge number of handy extra addons that you can use . I’ve used them all at some point before even having to write words and words on Minecraft, so they’re worth recapping, especially if you have a vain streak want to show off your sexy Minecraft worlds.
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