Upcoming Minecraft Patches – 1.6.6 and 1.7

Well look at Notch go, practically setting a Minecraft update schedule! I guess I’m glad that the Mojang guys all took that Gaming Friday to play Terraria (even though we were all stuck with 1.6.4), since it seems to have inspired Notch, as he admits on twitter.

Coming up in the next week or so patch 1.6.6 is planned to finish up fixing a lot of the bugs still present in 1.6.5. This includes the problem with ghosts curling up in any bed they find. Or I mean beds always claiming to be occupied. It’s not that terrible a bug, as far as things have gone in the update to the 1.6.x series, and everyone got along fine without beds fine before they were added to the game. I haven’t run into any other bugs that bother me as of yet, other than some general lagginess sometimes.

The other patch we have to look forward to is version 1.7, which Notch describes as “the Adventure Update“. He doesn’t elaborate on exactly what it will contain, but I hear a lot of comparison to the Dwarf Fortress adventure mode. The update should make the adventure map crowd very happy, and hopefully there will be actual game mechanics enforcing the rules of adventuring. It would make building an adventure map much more attractive.

Since 1.7 is all about Adventuring I imagine that means still no pistons! Automating my gigantic wheat farm will have to continue to wait.

Happy Crafting!

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Minecraft Beta 1.6.5 – Change Log

Notch got the changes for Minecraft 1.6.5 posted on his blog, and there are a few more fixes than I was expecting:

There are some annoying bed bugs in multiplayer in this version, I’ll fix those next week.

1.6.5:

* Tweaked the connection reading code a lot. Hopefully this helps.
* Changed the “limit framerate” option to a “framerate cap” option.
* Added “Advanced OpenGL” again
* Players riding anything or sleeping in anything will stop doing so when they leave the game now
* Removed the minecraft version number from the main game window. It’s still available in the title screen
* Fixed some entities appearing to fall through the ground repeatedly in multiplayer (some might still do so)
* Fixed the server sometimes thinking the player hit a corner when walking when they didn’t
* Fixed dropped damaged items vanishing after a single use after being picked up
* Fixed dropped items not getting ejected from blocks properly
* Fixed the achievements window rendering some graphics outside the clip window
* Fixed players saving while sneaking being loaded too high up
* Fixed shift+click transferring items causing a crash when the target container is full
* Fixed lighting updates sometimes not happening correctly
* Fixed the players health appearing to be full when entering/exiting the nether
* Fixed a couple of instances where beds would act strange in multiplayer, primarily the “already occupied” bug

Besides fixing the major bugs there are quite a few tweaks to rendering to try and improve performance. I will have to mess around with those on my setup and see how they play.

As you can see, fixes on several crash bugs are included as well. I hadn’t done it yet but I certainly use the shift+click transfer on nearly full chests, and thank god for the lighting fix. There are torches as far as the eye can see on my server, and I need those to keep working!

Looks like we can expect some more patching in the coming week too, so be ready for lots of server updating. Now go an enjoy the new patch, I have some replacement diamond tools to go craft.

Happy Crafting!

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Minecraft Update 1.6.5 – Bug Fixes are Here!

Notch just tweeted that he’s got the bugs taken care of and Minecraft release 1.6.5 is out! From Notch’s twitter:

Minecraft Beta 1.6.5 is out. Let me know how it is.

I’m going to update my server immediately and I’ll post again as soon as I can give things a good test and report back!

Happy Crafting!

Quick Update: All of the major game-breaking bugs seem to be fixed! No more chunk loading problems on my server makes me especially happy! Thanks so much to Notch for putting in the extra hours to get this stuff fixed!

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Minecraft Bug-Fixes for 1.6.4 – Tomorrow

Well I guess Notch is not as omniscient as I was expecting over the last couple days. As now revealed on his twitter Notch was completely unaware of the game-breaking bugs we were all facing and had a nice long afternoon of playing Terraria! So congrats Minecraft community, we were not vocal enough regarding bugs! Not that we need to change that. But now we are promised that Notch will be going in to work tomorrow, on a Saturday, to work on the bigger bugs. Until that time, I have a couple workarounds.

As for tools breaking instantly after they have been dropped (either intentionally or upon death), I saw someone on Reddit saying that if you put them into a chest, and then close and reopen the chest dialog they should be fixed. I haven’t had the chance to try this, as I’ve been dealing more with the second, and possibly larger error.

The chunk loading problems I mentioned in my previous post I may have linked to my very large wheat farm. I noticed that every time I get stuck with only a couple chunks loaded, or even none at all, I could see the tilled dirt blocks from my farm loading very… very… slowly. I was able to make my way farther and farther away by walking into the abyss away from the farm and disconnecting and reconnecting until the chunk I had entered would load. Repeating this a dozen or so times I was finally able to get far enough away from my farm that the chunks containing it unloaded. Once it wasn’t loaded anymore, the rest of the world loaded normally. I tried going back towards the farm to see if the problem was resolved, but 20 or 30 seconds after it came into view the Minecraft client completely crashed. When I reconnected I was back where I started. I repeated the process and again made it to chunks that would load normally.  If anyone else who is experiencing this issue can confirm if they are near a wheat farm when the world will not load, I’d appreciate it.

So I’ll keep an eye out for patch 1.6.5, or possibly more, coming tomorrow. Until then, Happy Crafting!

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Minecraft Update 1.6.4 – Not Quite Perfect

Just one last quick update for the day regarding the last Minecraft bug-fix patch, 1.6.4.

While the patch does seem to have taken care of a few bugs affecting server performance, one major thing it seems to have introduced is issues with chunk loading. I unfortunately am not at my own PC where I could take a video of the phenomenon, but let me describe what happens on my SMP server.

When logging on, for some players (but not all) no chunks will load. Entities such as animals, mobs, and players will show up but just jitter in place as the client and server fight over wether or not the ground exists. If you’re lucky and you are able to teleport to a distant player, the chunk loading process is triggered, but it takes place from farthest to nearest chunk. You are still stuck jittering while you watch the chunks load, until the chunk below you is finally loaded. Then everything seems to be fine. Logging out and back in seems to cause this scenario to repeat most of the time.

Until Notch is able to take a look into this, teleporting to another place beyond your current render distance seems to be the only workaround I have found. Not every player is afflicted with this problem, thankfully. Just a few hundred blocks from where a friend and I were stuck, another player was able to log in and work on his building normally.

Here’s hoping all this is sorted out by tomorrow. Happy Crafting!

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Minecraft 1.6 – Severe Lag Bug

Well, after attempting to venture into the Nether with a buddy I’ve found Minecraft, as it currently stands, to be completely unplayable. Of course it took me dying and losing all my equipment to decide this, but now I’m certain.

Notch has posted on his twitter that they are aware of a bug that is causing severely high CPU usage on the server. I’d recommend everyone take a bit of a break, don’t attempt anything crazy on  your server right now. I had to learn my lesson in lava!

Keep an eye on Notch’s twitter feed and he’ll let everyone know when he’s got another bug fix update to try out. I know the game is in Beta, but I had hoped things were past this kind of game-breaking problem. But we know Notch is on the case, so I’ll take my own advice and be patient!

Happy Crafting! (at some future point!)

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Minecraft Update Live: Beta 1.6.2

The Minecraft update has gone live, and after a couple really fast bug fixes has been pushed up to version 1.6.2. I’ve got my server running the latest version, so everyone who is able should be set to hop on and try things out. The one downside is having to swap back to the default textures until the new items and blocks get sorted out.

Notch posted the complete change list on his blog for all to check out.

I’ve just had a chance to try things out a little. Maps aren’t that big a deal, at least when it’s just me on the server. I’ll have to see if/how I can get other players to show up on the map. The Nether is as creepy and deadly as I recall, with Ghasts just making things generally annoying. Despite all the good, overall I notice a ton more lag-like jittering, especially while riding a minecart. It seems to crop up from time to time randomly as well. It might be related to the changes Notch made in data compression, but it could be the addition of the Nether as well.

Venturing into the Portal

One undocumented update that I came across, is that water ladders seem to be completely dead now. The water next to the ladder seems to make no difference whatsoever. Water ladder – RIP.

Regardless I’m sure all the wrinkles will get worked out over the next week or so, and I’m still going to have a blast running the Nether with friends! – Actually looks like Notch is already on things, looking at his twitter feed.

So until the Ghasts get me, Happy Crafting!

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Minecraft Pocket Edition – First look

A while back I had heard a little bit of talk from the Mojang guys about a version of Minecraft for mobile phones. It sort of stopped being discussed shortly thereafter and I imagine most people, like myself, pretty much forgot about it amidst the excitement of all the new updates to Minecraft Beta.

Well now Mojang has revealed that the Minecraft Pocket Edition has been in the works and is slated to be demoed at the next E3. It will be coming first to the Sony Xperia Play, and then to all Android devices. I’m hoping that an iPhone version is to come at some point, but until it does this is just one more reason that I might take a longer look at an Android device next time I upgrade my phone.

Here is a demo video of Minecraft Pocket Edition being played on the Xperia:

It looks to be just the creative mode at the moment, survival mode is supposed to be coming. I can’t imagine trying to run from a creeper with the controls on a phone though. Maybe the mobs will all be slowed down to compensate. Still, I’m looking forward to see what the final product on mobile devices looks like. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to jump on my SMP server from my phone and continue playing without too much difference from what  the game is like on my PC.

Happy Crafting!

Related articles

• Xperia Play first in line for mobile Minecraft port (engadget.com)
• Mobile Minecraft Coming to Xperia Play First (escapistmagazine.com)
• Mobile Minecraft to Hit Sony Xperia Play First (pcworld.com)
• Minecraft Mobile Getting E3 Outing? [Rumor] (kotaku.com)
• Minecraft reportedly to launch on Android as an Xperia Play timed exclusive (thenextweb.com)
• Minecraft digging in on Xperia Play before other Android devices (joystiq.com)

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Minecraft Update 1.6 – Release Early tomorrow!

For anyone who doesn’t follow @notch on twitter, you may not have heard. But from a tweet sent just a short while ago, the Minecraft Beta 1.6 release is confirmed for early tomorrow morning!  Just a few hours to count down now, as I’d expect that to mean about 12 hours from the time of this post, since it’s already evening in Sweden.

Just a few of the awesome things that are in update are Nether working in SMP, Craftable maps, and Trap doors! There is other Minecraft news happening as well, but I’m going to gather that into a separate post coming up shortly! Keep your eyes peeled!

Happy Crafting!

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Minecraft 1.6 Trailer

I’m laughing quite a bit at the hilarious trailer put out on the TeamMojang YouTube account for the 1.6 update. I love the voice acting especially.

So the update should be nearly done since they’re putting up a trailer for it now!

Happy Crafting!

Related articles

• Minecraft Beta 1.6 – Feature List (bwochinski.wordpress.com)
• Overdue Update: Life, Minecraft, and Starcraft 2 (bwochinski.wordpress.com)
• My Unofficial Minecraft Game Trailer (wasdstomp.com)

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