Minecraft 1.8 'The Bountiful Update' is out

[Erik]

Roughly a year after 'The Update that Changed the World' landed, the team over at Mojang has released the next major update for their ever popular block building game, Minecraft. This release has reportedly taken developers over 300 days to create, and as one would expect, comes with a long list of improvements, additions, as well as bug fixes. 

The Bountiful Update, as Notch and his crew have dubbed it, not only includes new features but important structural changes, too.

The complete list of changes is massive but the highlighted backend improvements includes replacing the hard-coded block renderer with a system that can read block shapes from data files and performance enhancements like multithreading the client-side chunk rendering.

The update also brings new stone blocks (granite, andesite and diorite), slime blocks, banners, armor stands, prismarine and sea lantern blocks, and a spectator game mode. Meanwhile, new commands include /blockdata, /clone, /fill, /particle, /worldborder, /stats and more.

You can read the official release notes in the Minecraft Wiki, or if you are ready to go download the latest version of Minecraft.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/57923-minecraft-18-the-bountiful-update-is-out.html

 

[VitalyT]

It will happily rest in my special box of things I called "Things I don't get", or simply "WTF stuff".

A few month ago I even installed it and tried to play, in an effort to comprehend why so much craziness around this game, but I still failed to understand it, and so just deleted.

Any corner I tried to look at it from (and this game is all about corners, nothing smooth in it), it just looks retarded. Maybe I didn't check every corner, but I didn't feel like continuing.

I wonder if the images of sheep everywhere are to stereotype its regular user...

 

[Guest]

Minecraft is about what you do in the game, not how it looks, how it works or what story it tells. People who have built working computer bits inside it, full scale models of things and much much more are testament to the versatility of the game and the endless possibility it provides for creative minds.

If you play games to enjoy what the developer created for you, not to create things, then Minecraft isn't for you; Minecraft requires creativity and initiative to do things in the game, much like real life really. Minecraft is an effective real life simulator without the annoying restrictions. Part SimCity, part Sims and part real life with the mining and building required to do what you want. It is an awesome learning tool but learning and creativity are not always things people are able to do or want to do when gaming so it isn't for everybody despite its popularity.

I would love playing it but don't have enough time, my backlog of games is growing and so are my various wishlists at different digital stores. I can always play Minecraft later, it will never get old to build things in an online environment.

 

[Zero21XX]

It will happily rest in my special box of things I called "Things I don't get", or simply "WTF stuff".

A few month ago I even installed it and tried to play, in an effort to comprehend why so much craziness around this game, but I still failed to understand it, and so just deleted.

Any corner I tried to look at it from (and this game is all about corners, nothing smooth in it), it just looks retarded. Maybe I didn't check every corner, but I didn't feel like continuing.

I wonder if the images of sheep everywhere are to stereotype its regular user...

I take it you've never played with Lego's as a child? because that's pretty much it.Change the name from "Minecraft" to "Lego World" and that's what you have, a Lego sandbox game.

 

[red1776]

I get get the 'Lego" scenario, but I built a machine for a father to give to his son who told me that he needed it for Minecraft. Expecting him to inform me of his 8-10 year old son, he then went on to tell me he was 33 years of age. check out the hosts of the thousands of Minecraft you tube hosts who get giddy to the point of wetting themselves over pretending to taste an imaginary 'Redstone' cake, and the people who leave comments that would seem to imply that their day has been ruined by the host not trying a particular mod.
People 20-50 years of age playing this game (and damn giddy about it) gives me the creeps.
So yeah, I played Lego's....of course I was 8 when I did.
BTW, I have a 5 and 7 year old that subject me to these Youtube vomit inducing 20 minutes on a daily basis.
We have a saying here in Minnesota....ish

 

[Ranger12]

Surely you would think that these articles are proofread before being posted. There are no less than 6 grammatical errors in a short 180 words, 3 of which are in the first paragraph alone. I am no grammar nazi but it is hardly professional.

 

[oldikes]

I get get the 'Lego" scenario, but I built a machine for a father to give to his son who told me that he needed it for Minecraft. Expecting him to inform me of his 8-10 year old son, he then went on to tell me he was 33 years of age. check out the hosts of the thousands of Minecraft you tube hosts who get giddy to the point of wetting themselves over pretending to taste an imaginary 'Redstone' cake, and the people who leave comments that would seem to imply that their day has been ruined by the host not trying a particular mod.
People 20-50 years of age playing this game (and damn giddy about it) gives me the creeps.
So yeah, I played Lego's....of course I was 8 when I did.
BTW, I have a 5 and 7 year old that subject me to these Youtube vomit inducing 20 minutes on a daily basis.
We have a saying here in Minnesota....ish

how dare people exercise creativity in their free time after the age of 10

 

[red1776]

how dare people exercise creativity in their free time after the age of 10

...and how dare me express my 'Creepedoutedness' over It..
Did I call them *****s?..
Did I call them scourge of the earth?
Did say they should be shunned from society?

Perhaps you could point out where exactly I did anything but express my befuddlement over grown people stacking blocks.

 

[oldikes]

...and how dare me express my 'Creepedoutedness' over It..
Did I call them *****s?..
Did I call them scourge of the earth?
Did say they should be shunned from society?

Perhaps you could point out where exactly I did anything but express my befuddlement over grown people stacking blocks.

I didnt call you out any of those things.

Its not "stacking blocks." its using blocks to build art. and yes, its art. I mean its more productive than watching TV or criticizing players of a certain game in the comments of a news article.

As with music creation, or drawing, or singing, or game design, or anything of that sort, its an expression of creativity...
with your logic, one could be befuddled as to why grown people spend their time being ripped apart by zombies or mindlessly shooting other grown adults in the head virtually.

 

[red1776]

I didnt call you out any of those things.

Its not "stacking blocks." its using blocks to build art. and yes, its art. I mean its more productive than watching TV or criticizing players of a certain game in the comments of a news article.

As with music creation, or drawing, or singing, or game design, or anything of that sort, its an expression of creativity...
with your logic, one could be befuddled as to why grown people spend their time being ripped apart by zombies or mindlessly shooting other grown adults in the head virtually.

[/QUOTE]with your logic, one could be befuddled as to why grown people spend their time being ripped apart by zombies or mindlessly shooting other grown adults in the head virtually.[/QUOTE]

Yep.
Art is is in the eye of the beholder, and I think Minecraft as 'ART' is a stretch of epic proportions.
By the way, I have no interest, nor am I compelled to understand the interest or obsession. It is my opinion of the game and the interest in it to grown adults.

 

[Ranger12]

It will happily rest in my special box of things I called "Things I don't get", or simply "WTF stuff".

A few month ago I even installed it and tried to play, in an effort to comprehend why so much craziness around this game, but I still failed to understand it, and so just deleted.

Any corner I tried to look at it from (and this game is all about corners, nothing smooth in it), it just looks retarded. Maybe I didn't check every corner, but I didn't feel like continuing.

I wonder if the images of sheep everywhere are to stereotype its regular user...

I assume you're talking about these corners. I agree, they're terrible. Pains me to look at them. Stuff like this should be banned. Whatever sheep did this just needs to call it quits. He clearly has no taste in true entertainment.
/sarcasm

 

[VitalyT]

I assume you're talking about these corners. I agree, they're terrible. Pains me to look at them. Stuff like this should be banned. Whatever sheep did this just needs to call it quits. He clearly has no taste in true entertainment.
/sarcasm

Lego for adults, is what it is.

 

[9Nails]

Minecraft will always remind me of Quake 1. (Just going off the looks of the game.) My kids love this game, and spend hours making houses, spawning horses, and watching countless fan-video/machinama on Youtube. I have to keep the household server updated. And just wonder why all the updates?! It doesn't appear to change that much on the surface. I'd enjoy it more if the PC version were simplified as the Xbox 360 interface is. I'm just to casual to recall how to build all the things.

 

[Darkshadoe]

Surely you would think that these articles are proofread before being posted. There are no less than 6 grammatical errors in a short 180 words, 3 of which are in the first paragraph alone. I am no grammar nazi but it is hardly professional.

Shooting the writer an email and telling them about their mistake is not being a grammar nazi. Calling him or her out in the comments is

Yahoo is a multi-million dollar company. Check out their news sometime. You need a calculator to count their mistakes in grammar.

 

[oldikes]

Yahoo is a multi-million dollar company. Check out their news sometime. You need a calculator to count their mistakes in grammar.

Also to count their mistakes in information reporting.

 

[BlueDrake]

Minecraft will always remind me of Quake 1. (Just going off the looks of the game.) My kids love this game, and spend hours making houses, spawning horses, and watching countless fan-video/machinama on Youtube. I have to keep the household server updated. And just wonder why all the updates?! It doesn't appear to change that much on the surface. I'd enjoy it more if the PC version were simplified as the Xbox 360 interface is. I'm just to casual to recall how to build all the things.

Why all the updates? There's always new items, blocks, animals, changes, etc happening. PC version of course has been with 1.8, gone through a serious overhaul for the rendering. No longer is it killing a beast PC, running even the most basic of things. All other versions play catch up, to what the original game has. In terms of biomes, blocks, monsters, etc being added.

The actual main focus, for the whole rendering change? They wanted to bring caves to mobile, but it would basically kill your gameplay entirely. Literally a few fps if anything, and a lot of things done to mobile was done for PC. Which has been a great help overall, because of how taxing the game can be. It's not multi-threaded making it very difficult to maintain, good fps long term especially for the extreme PC gamers. IE: 100+ mods along with shaders, likely possible with a good single-threaded CPU (mainly Intel has the strength here) would do a good job.

Likely some mods out there, that would just simplify things for you. Or just easily make crafting a few or one step process, just the problem is digging out those specifics for yourself. There's literally thousands of mods, spanning the various versions so sifting through is a real pain.

Also the constant updates, are likely due to they want it updated right? Must be a real pain, keeping such a thing going. I'm running my own server, just mostly myself so I have less burden when playing. I imagine it's monthly or so updates, or they making you update specific things?

 

[psycros]

If Minecraft had graphics at least on par with games from ten years ago and some defined goals it might be interesting. I love the idea of an open world with multiple paths to success, but that's just not what Minecraft is. Like the OP, I just don't see the attraction. Why not a game where you have to build a village to defend against barbarians or monsters? And then maybe later the village becomes a town, and then later a fortified city and so on. Something like that would be amazing.

 

[oldikes]

If Minecraft had graphics at least on par with games from ten years ago and some defined goals it might be interesting. I love the idea of an open world with multiple paths to success, but that's just not what Minecraft is. Like the OP, I just don't see the attraction. Why not a game where you have to build a village to defend against barbarians or monsters? And then maybe later the village becomes a town, and then later a fortified city and so on. Something like that would be amazing.

thats exactly how many people play the game.

 

[Guest]

Respect all your views Guys..
I'm 25 and my son is 8 and we both love playing Minecraft. I think if used in the right way, Minecraft can be a fantastic learning tool. I'm an IT Consultant so it gives me chance to teach my son a bit about coding and networking. Most adults couldn't tell you about the IP addresses, subnets and port numbers but my 8yr old is getting there. I also do things like sit in separate rooms playing on the LAN so when he wants to say something he has to type it which improves his typing skills and spelling.

"Hey Dad com see the dimunds qwik" he would say
"Thats cool dude, I will come and see the diamonds quickly, I'm on my way!"

He gets the idea quickly and looks back at the spelling in the chat window. He's now good with words like explode, construction, parallel, enormous etc

When were building big stuff, ill also make him do fairly tricky equations to make sure our building is symmetrical. He forgets I'm teaching him maths because he just thinks were having fun building a big battle arena. (y)

That all said, I still limit his time on the game because I can see others kids go a bit over the top with it.
Minecraft is what you make it.... endless possibilities
I think it helps communication, team work, planning, logic etc (the list is endless)

Much love guys

 

[red1776]

Respect all your views Guys..
I'm 25 and my son is 8 and we both love playing Minecraft. I think if used in the right way, Minecraft can be a fantastic learning tool. I'm an IT Consultant so it gives me chance to teach my son a bit about coding and networking. Most adults couldn't tell you about the IP addresses, subnets and port numbers but my 8yr old is getting there. I also do things like sit in separate rooms playing on the LAN so when he wants to say something he has to type it which improves his typing skills and spelling.

"Hey Dad com see the dimunds qwik" he would say
"Thats cool dude, I will come and see the diamonds quickly, I'm on my way!"

He gets the idea quickly and looks back at the spelling in the chat window. He's now good with words like explode, construction, parallel, enormous etc

When were building big stuff, ill also make him do fairly tricky equations to make sure our building is symmetrical. He forgets I'm teaching him maths because he just thinks were having fun building a big battle arena. (y)

That all said, I still limit his time on the game because I can see others kids go a bit over the top with it.
Minecraft is what you make it.... endless possibilities
I think it helps communication, team work, planning, logic etc (the list is endless)

Much love guys

I agree with your sentiment. My five and seven year love the game. The fellow a few posts up took my post a bit seriously. It has helped both my younger ones with their spelling and a bit about where the bacon they eat come from. It reminds me of electronic lego's I used to play as a kid.
my point was that I am flabbergasted by the Thirty and forty year olds who spend 10 hours a day playing this thing, making a youtube video every session and are giddy doing so. I think If your Minecraft video has four to six letter expletives in it, you are probably too old to be playing it. It's just one of the modern age oddities that leaves my jaw scraping the floor every time an adult slays a giant spider with a pixelated axe and a stub for a hand, and feels the need to post a short film about it. Buy then...I don't get Tweeting either and why anyone would care why you ( or your Minecraft character) had Cheerios for breakfast either.
Have fun with the young ones

 

[Guest]

I agree with your sentiment. My five and seven year love the game. The fellow a few posts up took my post a bit seriously. It has helped both my younger ones with their spelling and a bit about where the bacon they eat come from. It reminds me of electronic lego's I used to play as a kid.
my point was that I am flabbergasted by the Thirty and forty year olds who spend 10 hours a day playing this thing, making a youtube video every session and are giddy doing so. I think If your Minecraft video has four to six letter expletives in it, you are probably too old to be playing it. It's just one of the modern age oddities that leaves my jaw scraping the floor every time an adult slays a giant spider with a pixelated axe and a stub for a hand, and feels the need to post a short film about it. Buy then...I don't get Tweeting either and why anyone would care why you ( or your Minecraft character) had Cheerios for breakfast either.
Have fun with the young ones

Completely agree, especially about twitter
I suppose that's the difficulty online, you can read posts either way depending on what mood your in and most people take things far too seriously.

I suppose my point was that I'd much rather my son be playing Minecraft than some of the other games I've seen him play (and I can use Minecraft to my advantage sometimes)

So I think what were both saying is: Minecraft is good in moderation but don't feel the need to post videos about it and stay off twitter

PS: did you have cheerios for breakfast

Ash

 

[Guest]

I feel sorry for anyone who doesnt get Minecraft thing it says a few things about you........