Minecraft Monday (04-18-11)

News

This have been pretty quiet on the official update front, as Notch, Jens and the rest of the Mojang Minecraft crew work hard to finalise the beta1.5 update, set to release this week. No word as of yet what day specifically, but Jens did elude to the possibility of a mid-week release.

@jeb_ Since some dude died 2000 years ago, friday is a day off, so we will not release on thursday. Maybe earlier? No promises though!

So it seems this will be the week we see big changes in the Minecraft world. As mentioned last week, achievements and weather effects have already been confirmed, with not much else set in concrete. However, through twitter, Notch has been letting some more interesting tid-bits that will be included in the 1.5 update, one of which people might not be immediately too happy with.

@notch You know how you can climb ladders with gaps? Yeah, not in 1.5.

This could prove to be very frustrating to those who currently depend on the old ladder system, or who are stuck down mines when the update is released. So make sure all you miners out there return to the surface ASAP, making sure not to save the game in places dependent on a ladder! It’s not all bad news, though, as they’re still constantly improving the finer details of the game.

@notch To make up for the ladder fix, I fixed the side textures of grass! Also things walking through snow produce snow particles around their feet

Along with a few other twitter updates, Notch did update his blog once last week, briefly explaining that they couldn’t make their target release last week, but were aiming for this week. Although brief, he did mentions some excellent sounding new features to the game.

There’s been significant feature creep (we’ve got powered rails now, and lightning hitting a pig will turn it into a zombie pigman)

This update is sounding more spectacular with every update I read. It really could be the next significant update, much like the Halloween and beta 1.0 were. This one could be one to remember…

Feature

Something that I’ve been keeping an eye on over the past few months has been the surge in Minecraft multiplayer servers going up. As anyone can create one, it’s always interesting to see what people have been up to. Most “Let’s Play” style Minecraft videos are often server based multiplayer, such as Paul Soares Jr’s Minecraft Dad series, No Games for Young Men, Satori Love’s Pixel Angels and many, many others.

Let’s Play’s aren’t all SMP servers are good for, though. This week I thought I’d show you some other things people are doing with servers, starting with what I believe to currently be the most impressive building server (running vanilla – no spawning) that Minecraft has seen.

Fairy recent in comparison to a lot of large servers out there, Video Games Awesome’s server (as mentioned in a previous Minecraft Monday) has grown exponentially, thanks to it’s vast community and dedicated moderators, not to mention the sever’s owner Fraser’s constant attention. After a few weeks of starting the server, it was obvious that the inhabitants were dedicated to building the most impressive things imaginable, leading to outstanding constructions, such as this “Giant Gaia Orb”.

The work and dedication that’s went into that build, and all the others on the server, is unbelievable - especially considering they’re all built from scratch, with no hacks. After touring their server, Fraser then started issuing weekly build challenges for the community, broadcasting the hosts of VGA’s reactions on live-streams. The first build challenge set was to build an “Old West” style town.

The scale, and accuracy, of the build was truly impressive, even inspiring one lone builder to recreate the Red Dead Redemption town of Armadillo. Towards the end of the tour, Fraser announced the theme of the next build – Asian. The Mods on the server set out to find an appropriate location to start the build, and a mere week later, the outcome was unreal…

I was lucky enough to witness the tour of “FrAsia” (named by the community) live this time; living in England means it didn’t start until about 2am for me, but sacrificing sleep was easily worth it to see this glorious build for the first time. The live-stream lasted hours and still never managed to cover every inch of the build. Even though plenty of people stuck to the theme, one Mod found time to work on a special Pixel Art project of his own.

The next build challenge was “Atlantis”, although I wasn’t able to witness it live. Currently, the videos for the build haven’t been released, but will hopefully appear on their YouTube channel soon, as it’s one I’m anticipating greatly.

Live-streams are a great way to show off the server, giving people a first-hand tour of the whole server. There are other ways to display and promote your server though, such as making cinematic trailers them, or getting someone far more talented to do them for you.

That’s right, Minecraft movie-maker Vareide has started offering his excellent services to help promote some amazing servers. The video above is for the GodCraft server, a pretty impressive and expansive world with a steadily growing membership. The 2nd server Vareide has promoted is equally as impressive.

Jesse’s Minecraft Sever offers itself as a role-playing affair, in which inhabitants can live and work in various themed settlements in a huge, and obviously open, world.

From epicly large-scale to a slightly smaller one, now. Irish website Chronic Reload launched a small server a few months back which has been steadily growing. After Minecraft went through several game-changing updates (such as the biomes, new trees and Lapis Lazarus) they started over, sparking off proceedings with a pretty successful build challenge. Although a relatively small server, it has been steadily growing in members, spreading out across the world, building new and interesting settlements everywhere (some even building vast under-ground cities). To keep track of the builds, server admin Stephen “Pip” Colfer created a fully zoomable map of the server so far! (see if you can find the dashing looking Polar Bear player.)

Currently, the server is down for maintenance, but make sure to check in after the beta 1.5 update when everything is back up and running.

With that said, there’s one more server, free to play, that you need to check out. The official That Gamer Hub (TGH) Minecraft Server is finally open to the public!

Community member DrunkenVegetarian kindly set up and ran a dedicated TGH Server, helping it grow until it was ready to be released to the public. Although still in its infancy, with a current player cap of 6, the TGH server boasts several features that will keep both dedicated players and newcomers interested. My favorite features added so far is the ability to enter the Nether (with future raiding parties already in works!) and the exclusive TGHMart.

This being a role-playing server, people can buy any item they want for a reasonable price:

The TGH-Mart is finally open for business! Just look for the tallest building in the world or use “/warp tghmart”.

This 10 story mega store has every item available in Minecraft for sale including tools, armor, weapons, and building materials. Just click on the sign labeled [BUY] underneath the item you want to purchase (this sign also displays the price). You can always check how much money you have by typing “/balance”. Also, there is a free cookie dispenser located on the first floor (obviously).

Another great feature of the server will be frequent in-game competitions, in which players can win a multitude of in-game items and materials. The first competition is currently underway, so make sure you drop by the forums to see how to enter.

The TGH forums went through an update recently, too, as we created a dedicated Minecraft section, hosting all things glorious in the world of blocks – from server information, build requests, picture threads, and general Minecraft stuff.

Check out the gallery below for more great pictures of the TGH Server builds.