Second Snapshot of the Week Released

Yesterday saw the release of the 12w21a Snapshot, which included a number of neat features - unfortunately, it also included a few bugs that made playing SSP nearly impossible for some. Now, in a move not common with Snapshots, a quick-fix has been released for those having trouble playing Single-Player. There's also some other goodies inside - most notably, a surprise with the Creative Mode inventory menu (Thanks Dinnerbone!). Get the latest Snapshot downloads below!

Client: Download

Server: Download

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MCX360 Breaks Record, Beats Black Ops

MCX360 has been climbing the charts since launch, breaking records and drawing in more players every day. Recently, it broke another unprecedented record - pushing COD: Black Ops out of the #2 Top LIVE Games spot! Since the launch of Modern Warfare 3, COD: Black Ops has held the #2 Top Game spot for XBox Live constantly.

MW3 and COD:BO have been staples of the XBOX library since launch, and despite some criticisms have maintained their hold as top titles nearly since they launched. Minecraft is the first game to disrupt these titles' seemingly endless reign on the Top XBox Live Games chart. Congrats, Minecraft!

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This Week's News Video - Pyramids, Villager Trading & More

This week, David & Toby take an in-depth look at our recent Snapshots, and more - take a look! Back to Top

Minecraft has hit over 6,000,000 (six million) sales, and just shy of 30 million registered users! The game continues growing, and so does the player-base; MCX360 has definitively sold over a million copies, and the Pocket Edition easily doubles those numbers.

It's almost impossible to really grasp the totality of how far Minecraft has come, and how much Mojang has grown. What will the next major landmark be for the smash-hit sandbox game, and the blockbusting team behind it?

All told, it is believed that Minecraft has sold over 9 million copies on every platform for which it is currently available. In the last 24 hours, 83,284 people have registered at minecraft.net, and 8,994 people bought the game, just on the PC platform, in that time. Minecraft also celebrated its third birthday almost two weeks ago today. Back to Top

Time for a new snapshot! One big difference this time is that you don’t need the server jar to play single-player - more and more, the process is being refined for ease of use. Change log is below!

• Villagers will trade items (They are notoriously cheap, however)
  
• Added a “currency item”
  
• A few minor terrain changes
  
• A new useful block/item (requires obsidian)
  
• Added a /seed command for showing the map seed
  
• Added sandstone stairs
  
• A lot of smaller changes and fixes

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Get the snapshot here:

Client: download

Server: download

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Some points of interest discovered already:

• Possible TNT traps in the world
  
• Ender Chest (Sort of like a chest network - place two different Ender Chests and place items in either, and they will appear in any other Ender Chests you have placed. It glows a bit.)
  
• Emerald and Emerald Ore (used with Villagers)
  
• Made Buckets stackable.
  
• Added Snow to Creative Inventory.
  
• NPC Villages change style according to their biome.
  
• Stars are more realistic.
  
• They are now slightly smaller and slightly brighter.
  
• Changed Gravel texture.
  
• Improved Options menu.
  
• Added Pyramids.
  
• Added a second Golden Apple made with Blocks of Gold.
  After being consumed, the player receives 30 second Regeneration IV, plus Resistance and Fire Resistance for 5 minutes.
  
• Dispensers will eject Water and Lava source blocks (from buckets); Will also take water and lava source blocks if there is an empty bucket inside

Of course, with any update there's always a few bugs - some of the most relevant ones are listed below (take note of "old world corruption in particular!):

• Emerald Ore has the wrong texture.
  
• Loading a world from a previous version corrupts it.
  
• Generated structures are very buggy.
  
• New Golden Apple does not appear in the creative mode inventory screen.
  
• Villager Trading for items worth more than one emerald doesn't work if you place the emeralds one by one.
  
• When removing the last Ender Chest, no items are ejected, and you must place a new one to retrieve the items. (may not be a bug)
  
• Single player still thinks it requires server/minecraft_server.jar. A blank file with the same name can be used.
  
• When generating a superflat world, you will get chunk errors - there will be some chunks generated in default, and the other are generated in superflat.
  
• Stacked buckets don't pick up fluids. Instead, the fluid just disappears.

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Split-Screen Refunds

Not long ago, Microsoft was slammed with complaints about the split-screen functionality of MCX360 - it was only available to players with an HD TV and a proper HDMI connection to the console - and in recent days, they have addressed those complaints. Microsoft has revised its listing for the game, and has been offering a refund to customers who paid for a game that didn't work as advertised (or not advertised, as the case is here).

The split-screen feature of the game was a huge draw to newcomers, especially those that believed they could just have a few friends over for a romp through the sandbox world. The initially ambiguous wording of guest passes and complete lack of forewarning regarding split-screen requirements made many buyers upset that they had been misled. The HD requirement wasn't listed in on the game's Xbox marketplace page, although this has been rectified in recent days to avoid confusion.

The guest passes, while initially confusing, have not changed meaningfully since launch, and continue to work as intended.

MCX360 1.7.3? Soon!

In more positive news, MCX360 will soon be seeing its first major update, to what most PC players knew as Beta 1.7.3! Even better, Microsoft's Roger Carpenter says he will likely discuss the update in his Thursday Minecraft Stream! You can see the stream's channel by clicking right here - be sure to check in tomorrow for all the details!

I will reveal at least one tidbit - pistons are included. Back to Top

Plugman - What Is It?

Plugman is an interesting plugin manager for any server admins who might be struggling with plugin management, particularly in real-time. For those not especially savvy in the back-end of servers, but would still like to host one for their friends and/or community, Plugman will seem like a gift from the Aether. What does it do, you ask? In short, it is a simple, easy to use Bukkit plugin that lets server admins enable, disable and reload plugins on the fly from either in-game or console. It has separate permissions for users to be able to get command usages and plugin info. Want to know more about this amazing plugin? Check out a full review (and interview with the current author) by clicking here!

Mob Farming - The Basics

Many Minecraft veterans will hear the term "mob farm" and have an immediate reaction - some love them, some hate them, others spend considerable amounts of time engineering complex and alarmingly high-yield mob farms. For anyone intimately familiar with the process, this video might seem redundant - but what about the everyday player who wants to learn more about them, and perhaps learn some easy tricks to build some? If this is you, look no further! Youtuber KaspersMC has drawn up a comprehensive video tutorial detailing, step-by-step, how to build a relatively simple and effective mob farm. Check it out!

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Testificates - New and Improved?

Jeb has been working hard on Testificates as of late, no doubt implementing some of the long-awaited features players have eagerly anticipated from them - including trading! The image above shows an example of the system he is currently working on, indicating that a barter system involving a form of currency is on the horizon. Finally, Testificates will do more than meander into your towns, panicking at the sight of creepers! Although that can be humorous in and of itself.

Showing a more humorous side, Jeb demonstrates his own personal method of something many players engage in with the often aimless villagers - experimentation!

Make of that what you will - no doubt they are being sized up for new shoes and fabulous prizes!

"You Are Minecraft" Finishes Off With Approximately 90,000 Player Models!

The massive player-driven You Are Minecraft project recently came to a close, with approximately ninety thousand player models, all constructed by players themselves! A number of notable personalities took part, including team members from Mojang (Jeb's model in particular is quite a looker). All said, the project was an incredible success, bringing in players from across the globe and uniting them in a single goal - make your player avatar in Minecraft! While model building is now closed, the "You Are Minecraft" team are not done - they wish to deliver this incredible project to Mojang in person! Want to help them do so? Click this link to see how you can help them bring this amazing project directly to Mojang themselves!

Custom Skins on MCX360?

While the XBLA version of Minecraft is, in many respects, very similar to Beta 1.6.5, a number of features were brought forth a little ahead of schedule, just to make the game that much better. Of course, more updates are on the way as they bring it up to speed with the PC version, and likely some gems designed specifically for the console. One thing that has come up a lot since launch is custom skins, and players will be pleased to know that they are not far off! Currently it is believed that the skins will be DLC for the game, although the specifics are not currently known at this time. Bear in mind, this can change between now and the release of skin customization, so keep an eye out here as we gather more information! Back to Top

This week, David and Toby investigate Mojang's latest weekly community offering, discuss the mind-blowing record sales of Minecraft, and much more - take a look! Back to Top

Been keeping tabs on the HungerCraft Weekly Hunger Games? If so, tomorrow's event may interest you - a team-based event, with HungerCraft participants going up against the best and brightest of the Reddit Minecraft Tournament players! In other words, teams will be formed from Reddit's player-base, and pitted against the strongest participants of HungerCraft's team!

The match will begin at 7 PM EDT on Friday, May 18th. It will consist of a Hungercraft match with players from both Hungercraft's community and RMCT. 4 teams from HungerCraft and RMCT will be entered into the Hungercraft match, a 4-team versus 4-team competition, with HC's team comprised of past Hungercraft victors - teams, rather than individuals, will claim victory in the event. Don't miss out!

HungerCraft also has two official games on Saturday, May 19th. One at 4 PM EDT and one at 7 PM EDT.

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Digital Diamond: Shrinkinator Adventure

Ever wonder what it would be like to be tiny, shrunk to the size of a pet food bowl? MinecraftUniverse has a couple of players that certainly did, and tackled an adventure map centered around the very idea! Watch as they attempt to navigate through a gigantic world that, even on Peaceful, isn't as friendly as it seems!

Want a shot at the map yourself? You can download it right here, and try it for yourself! Back to Top

A lot of exciting things have been happening in the world of Minecraft lately, and Mojang wants to share their good fortune with everyone! To begin, they are starting a weekly celebration of the community. This will happen in various forms – videos, tweets, and a weekly blog post every Wednesday. This week, they want to start off the celebration strong, with a free MCX360 code giveaway! How does it work? Easy - first, be sure to follow them on Twitter. Once you have done so, do one of the following:

• Help them come up with a great name for the weekly blog/community event! The best name gets a free code. OR,
  
• Create something cool with the theme of “Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition.” It can be a photo, sculpture, drawing, photoshop artwork, or anything fun you can think up. Tweet a picture of it and use the hashtag #MinecraftXBLA. Some winners will be chosen at random and others based on awesomeness and originality. Some of them will be featured on a first community YouTube video next week!

Don’t worry if you aren’t a twitter user, there will be lots of fun activities happening on Mojang's blog, YouTube, and also on Facebook. Check back every Wednesday for fun challenges and featured community members! Back to Top

While the title of the video may seem misleading - it's not actually Batman's Batcave - don't let it discourage you from checking this place out. Forumite CNBMinecraft has designed this incredibly elaborate secret base, complete with some of the most complex and compact modern convenience devices to be found anywhere! Automated alchemy, advanced hidden storage and so much more - we don't want to ruin all the surprises, so check it out for yourself! Back to Top