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!