Honestly, the biggest thing for me in the new update is the new biome code and the new terrain features like mountain biomes, rivers, ravines, and oceans. For me, that was one of the problems I had with the current version, that the generated landscapes didn’t feel very “real”, and I couldn’t build my port cities on an ocean, only on a relatively large lake.
The new farming and food stuff looks really interesting, and I’m looking forward to the villages and such as well, everything else I could take or leave. Endermen are creepy, but I’m going to get really annoyed if they start dismantling stuff I built (creepers are bad enough, but at least I can usually keep them away). Honestly, I think monsters are a little too abundant in the game at present, and I’d really like to be able to adjust their frequency and/or their tolerance to light. My biggest problem is monsters spawning on top of trees or in sheltered alleyways at night and then running amuck in my towns. It’s incredibly frustrating.
Volbard
3602
One of the most interesting things about Minecraft is how differently people play it. Landscape features like rivers and ravines actually do a lot for my gameplay. All I really do is wander around until I find a really scenic vista, and then I build a cool house there. Then, eventually, I wander around some more, probably looking for resources for my house, and I find an even better vista. Now I have to build a house there too, and then find some elaborate way to connect it to the first house.
I got to show Notch Torchlight at PAX, so of course I took the opportunity to assault him with this little anecdote. He was nice and pretended I wasn’t the hundredth person that day to tell him how they play Minecraft. I was pretty happy when his wife said that she plays the same way; I think that assures future support of my niche play-style.
Anyway, I’ll probably start a new world once rivers are in. Hope I can find one that runs next to a cliff face!
DocLazy
3603
At one point Notch was releasing updates every week, and those updates would add a lot of interesting content. That kind of all stopped when Minecraft became popular. The updates are now taking much longer and they seem to have much less useful content. I think it’s only going to get worse for him now he’s no longer working on Minecraft.
pg1
3604
Yes, totally agreed. Minecraft has more resources at it’s disposal than ever yet development just gets slower and slower.
Yep, he will never compete with the modding community in terms of sheer quantity.
But in the other hand, he promised a lot for 1.8, and he is already backing up, from what i have read, it seems not everything promised will be in 1.8 (because the date of that is already set) and part of it will be a bit later (1.9?).
Fozzle
3606
You also have to figure in the real life factor I would think. Mojang is a small team, and now that they have become popular, they are doing more shows, have more special events pulling at their time, etc. Add to that a marriage and a couple weeks vacation and your major developer’s summer goes by pretty fast…
KevinC
3607
Oh for sure, but the… “stagnation” of development on the game happened around the Halloween update in 2010, it’s been a lot longer than just a month or two.
The minecraft 1.8 trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYoO9XkCCHg
Rivers and canyons are looking very nice. And the Enderman suitably creepy. There will apparently be a new race of cave spiders too.
Wendelius
The cow dropped three meat when he killed it and the zombie dropped something new also.
Norfair
3610
I don’t know, the Minecraft wiki article on upcoming features seems to indicate a lot of features for 1.8.
Wow, no kidding. A lot of new stuff going on this patch.
Skorin
3612
A Slenderman reference in Minecraft? Alright, I’m back on board.
I was waiting for 1.8 to come back to the game… but i think i am going to have to wait until 1.9, for the npcs.
KevinC
3614
Me too. See you in April 2012, buddy.
Still the best ten euros I’ve ever spent though, to be fair. ;)
What’s the point of NPC villages without NPCs? Oh neat, I just found this abandoned village… How boring is that?
Creeeeeepy, for 4 year olds. That’s what empty villages are.
Pogo
3617
Yeah, agreed. I thought the random shallow ponds scattered about were pretty cool, and I imagine some of the landscapes that emerge from this update are going to be awesome to build around.
I just spawned in this empty world. How boring is that?
TurinTur
3619
Thanks for finally agreeing with me after all these months!
:P :P
Well, I think the game could become better as either a bustling world full of NPC-NPC interaction, or as a desolate infinity.
Did you ever play Noctis? It is a freeware DOS game produced in the past decade with terrible graphics, a highly incomplete featurelist but despite that truly amazing. It placed you essentially alone as the last of your species left in a galaxy, and literally billions of star systems to explore and the ability to land on planets. I trapised across tens of airless quartz spheres before finding a solar system with a planet containing breathable atmosphere and “grass”. On some of these exceedingly rare planets you can even find trees. And once, in my entire time playing this game, I saw the fleeting hindquarters of some unintelligent alien life.
A lot of the time, I hope Minecraft grows to recaptures the same feelings of absolute aloneness that Noctis made me feel. Everyone’s making “living world” games.
