Monthly Archives: June 2011
By Ben Wochinski on June 30, 2011
It’s just come down the pipeline, Minecraft Beta patch 1.7 is now live! The Changelog can be found on The Word of Notch.
We’ve got pistons, shears, a couple new textures, and TNT that is finally removable! Oh and if I forgot to mention before, the bug that made clay super-rare has been fixed, so finding clay should be tons easier in newly generated chunks.
I’ve gone ahead and updated my server, so next on the list is installing the pistons as floodgates in my auto-harvesting farm. It wont be long until I’m absolutely rolling in chests full of wheat! And as promised I’ll be getting a video of the farm in operation up asap!
Oh one last reminder! After updating don’t forget to either go back to default textures or get the latest update for any texture pack you may be using. Without updated textures any new blocks added to the game will be invisible!
Enjoy the update, and Happy Crafting!
Posted in Minecraft Tagged 1.7, Auto Harvest, Auto-Farm, Beta, Floodgate, Invisible Blocks, Live, Minecraft, Multiplayer, Online, Patch, Pistons, Release, Server, Shears, SMP, textures, TNT, Update, Video, Wheat
By Ben Wochinski on June 30, 2011
It’s only a few hours until the highly anticipated Piston update (1.7) is released for Minecraft. While we wait, Mojang has decided to do fans the favor of posting a trailer made for the patch, courtesy of Hat Films.
And as a bonus, here is the behind-the-scenes footage from Hat Films.
Now all that’s left is to get our hands on the update! Happy Crafting!
Posted in Minecraft Tagged 1.7, Hat Films, Minecraft, Mojang, Multiplayer, Notch, Online, Patch, Pistons, Server, Shears, SMP, Teaser, Trailer, Update
By Ben Wochinski on June 29, 2011
Just wanted to put up a post for those who play on my Minecraft server, I finally got around to updating the server map! I went all out this time though and actually made a Tectonicus render of it, so it’s a lovely interactive google-type map now.
You can view the map from the link on the My Minecraft Server page.
I’m off to work for now, and then I’ll be up bright and early for the piston update! Hopefully Notch releases it early so I can get the updating done right away. Until then, Happy Crafting!
Posted in Minecraft Tagged 1.7, Map, Minecraft, Multiplayer, Notch, Online, Patch, Pistons, Server, SMP, Tectonicus, Update
By Ben Wochinski on June 28, 2011
Notch has written another post on The Word of Notch today, this time discussing the 1.8 Adventure update for Minecraft in just a little more detail! It seems the size of the patch has gotten quite large, and for fear of the amount of time it will take to finish it, Notch and Jens are giving up on complete secrecy of the update. They aren’t spoiling specific things, but the stuff already listed is really exciting.
Of the things promised I would say that the NPC villages and “more interesting farming” are the big two for me! I’ve always wanted to have more control over farming, especially raising animals. As for NPCs being added to the game, that really will change how Minecraft plays. I can’t even imagine how you would interact with an NPC in Minecraft at this point, but the first thing that comes to mind is some kind of menu-based interaction – RPG style. We’ll just have to see what Notch comes up with though, perhaps something completely different!
Jens posted a quick tweet this morning listing some other things to make it into the 1.7 update for this Thursday as well:
- Pistons
- Shears – for sheep and wool.
- Redstone repeater fix.
- Fences can be placed on top of fences
- New cobble and clay brick textures
To explain the redstone repeater fix, Jens had previously mentioned making that change, and to describe it in a sentence: Repeaters are now powered by any redstone on their input side, regardless of its orientation. This will allow for more compact circuits in many setups.
That’s all the new for this morning, but it’s been a big one, as these patch weeks tend to be! I’m looking forward to seeing all the piston creations come Thursday.
Happy Crafting!
Posted in Minecraft Tagged 1.7, 1.8, Adventure, Farming, Fences, Minecrraft, Multiplayer, NPC, Online, Patch, PC Gaming, Pistons, Release Date, Server, Shears, SMP, textures, Update
By Ben Wochinski on June 27, 2011
This morning Notch has put up a post on The Word of Notch laying out a miniature road map for Minecraft development up to its release in November. The most exciting part right now is that Pistons are confirmed to be coming this Thursday, in update 1.7, along with other bug fixes.
Also mentioned is that the adventure update will be coming in update 1.8 now. In the blog post Notch mentions that the adventure update has expanded in scope since he and Jens have begun work on it. It is going to take quite a long time to finish, but will change the game a lot for all the work. I’m extremely excited for all the adventuring that will hopefully be opened up by that update.
After the adventuring update Notch says that they’re going to start focusing on the Minecraft release! Adding conventional features like friends lists and a really server browser for SMP. I can hardly believe that the little alpha state indie game I started playing about 9 months ago is so close to full release! And thanks to Notch for the updates, it’s a great way to start the morning for me!
Personally in Minecraft I spent a good while last night working on the redstone wiring for my Auto-farm. Everything is all set for the pistons at this point, down to having the ingredients for crafting them set aside. When the update comes out Thursday, I plan to make a video tour of the farm, including the wiring setup. So keep an eye here for that video coming this weekend!
Until later, Happy Crafting!
Posted in Minecraft Tagged 1.7, 1.8, Adventure, Auto-Farm, Farming, June 30, Minecraft, Multiplayer, Notch, Online, Patch, Pistons, Redstone, Release Date, Server, SMP, Update, Wheat, Wiring
By Ben Wochinski on June 26, 2011
I literally just saw this come through @notch‘s twitter feed and I felt such a sudden excitement I just had to post about this! Based upon initial reactions to a suggestion by Notch it sounds pretty likely that we could be getting an update very soon. This wouldn’t be the adventure update, as that is still quite a long way off. But perhaps we could see a few other additional features that have already been mentioned put into this early update as well. At this point Notch is seemingly leaving the decision about a piston-only update just to a discussion with Jens, who implemented them. And then the mythical 1.6.7 update could be a reality! Just don’t forget the clay scarcity fix, Notch!
I feel this is an excellent idea, given the apparent complexity that is going into this next patch. I’ll be keeping an eye on this development, as I’ve got a lot of interest in pistons, as I know does most of the Minecraft world!
Happy Crafting!
Posted in Minecraft Tagged 1.6.7, 1.7, Date, Early, Minecraft, Multiplayer, Online, Patch, Pistons, Release, Server, SMP, Update
By Ben Wochinski on June 26, 2011
As any regular readers may have noticed, I’ve not been posting all that frequently lately. This tends to happen when there’s a big Minecraft update in the works; I get all excited about the new features that are promised and end up thinking and planning about what to do after the update instead of just playing with the current game. I keep hoping to hear something about when the update might be coming but all that Notch has offered on his twitter feed so far is that it will be released “when it’s fun”. It’s a good, if annoying answer, to hear from a game developer though, so I shall have to continue waiting patiently.
Blocky Elements!
In other Minecraft news, Mojang announced some new Minecraft merchandise that is now available from the J!NX Minecraft store. My favorite by far is the new Periodic table of Minecraft shirt! The ‘atomic number’ listed for each block is even the actual data value for the block in game, which is perfect, since I love a multi-layered geek humor shirt. This will have to go to the top of my gift list at once!
With the weekend just beginning for me, I am hoping to get back into the swing of things and get this blog updated! Until we speak next, Happy Crafting!
Posted in Minecraft Tagged 1.7, Date, Merch, Merchandise, Minecraftt, Multiplayer, Online, Patch, Release, Server, Shirt, SMP, Update
By Ben Wochinski on June 20, 2011
I hope all the fathers out there had a great day!
I got my gifts on Saturday since today was a travel day. We came up to my grandparents’ place in the north woods of Wisconsin for a relaxing few days. From my wife and daughter I got some art supplies, since I like to draw with my daughter almost daily. Included was a homemade pencil bag my wife made with the Minecraft logo stenciled on for me. She also made me a T shirt with a Tardis design on it that came out really awesome.
I wish I had taken pics of them before we left home so I could share them here, but I didn’t think about how to post about them at the time.
Anyway the Internet isn’t super stable up in the woods so I shall try to save up some things to post when I can get to it. Keep an eye here for another post regarding the latest “leaks” about the Minecraft 1.7 update, as well as a few other non-Minecraft things I’ve been up to!
Happy Crafting!
Posted in Personal Tagged 1.7, Art, Dr Who, Father's Day, Minecraft, News, Patch, Update
By Ben Wochinski on June 14, 2011
Just saw another tidbit about the upcoming Minecraft 1.7 patch! Jens (@jeb_) posted a video demoing how the pistons work on his twitter feed. Video below:
A few things are different than the piston mod that the idea came from, but the biggest difference seems to be that they wont launch things into the air. I’m good with that, as it’s a fairly niche use anyway. I’m just excited that I’ll be finally finishing up my auto-farm! I have to do a video on the farm once it is complete, and I’ve got to start saving up redstone for all the wiring that will be required.
I’m completely excited about this update, as I have been with the last several patches. And all this before anyone even knows what’s coming in the Adventure portion of it! Looking forward to it all, but I hope we get a release date soonish.
Until later, Happy Crafting!
Posted in Minecraft Tagged 1.7, Adventure, Automatic, Farm, Minecraft, Multiplayer, Online, Patch, PC Gaming, Piston, Redstone, Server, SMP, Sticky, Update, Video, Wheat, Wiring
By Ben Wochinski on June 11, 2011
It looks like I’ll be more or less starting over on my whole Nether-Venture series for Minecraft. Not by choice really, but I’m never too upset about starting over when it comes to Minecraft. Getting things set up is about 75% of the fun for me.
I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but the Nether on my server got corrupted or something, and so the game decided to just generate a new one all of a sudden. After trying to restore from several backups through McMyAdmin with zero effect, I had to contact the server host at Servercraft.co. I learned from the tech support that McMyAdmin does not yet support backups for the Nether. That was certainly a surprise to me, as I thought that I had daily backups of the whole world. The guys at Servercraft were good enough to manually set up a backup for the Nether on my server to run daily, it’s just a manual file copy process to restore from a backup, rather than a couple clicks as it would be through the admin panel.
So that’s mostly what I’ve been working on the last couple days. It’s almost a bit odd, having a brand new Nether, but a ton of netherrack and some glowstone already stored up in the fort. Going forward I’ll be bringing you new posts from the Nether, starting with getting a new base set up!
See you in the Nether, and Happy Crafting!
Posted in Minecraft Tagged 1.6.6, Backup, Beta, McMyAdmin, Minecraft, Multiplayer, Nether, Nether-Ventures, Online, Server, SMP
