A number of SMP related issues were addressed here - crashing when entering certain servers, baby villagers only being farmers, and issues with spawning baby wolves, among others. Remember, if you aren't having trouble with 1.4.4, you can continue playing with it normally - however, if you want to update to the 1.4.5 PR client, don't fear! The 1.4.5 Pre-Release client should be able to connect to any 1.4.4 servers without any trouble at all.
Give it a try, see if it doesn't help with certain SMP issues! Whether it does or not, be sure to report your findings right here!
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1.4.5 Client: Click here
1.4.5 Server: Click here
But that is not good enough reason to complain.
Mods as of this moment are considered unofficial or third party. Technically, it is not the developers' fault that an unofficial feature of the game is broken by an update. This is unless developers provided an official mod support like an API or SDK, which in this case that is yet to happen. I bet the mod API Mojang's working on wont involve altering or replacing the code or the core files of the game itself. It'd be more like simply making "extensions" or external scripts that you can place on a certain folder where the game would just load them while the original code and files remain intact, similar to the CLEO ASI plug-in for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas made by Seemann.
As a matter of fact, you should even be glad that the developers are this "kind" towards modders, which something I'd consider rare as a long-time casual modder of games before Minecraft, as there are developers that would even try to obfuscate the game as much as possible.
There are only very few developers that provide official mod support, like those who made Half-Life, Crysis and Doom who provide SDK's for their engines, allowing others to make mods or games based on their engines. I'd say Mojang are this kind by making these pre-releases, which sole purpose is to allow modders to update their mods ahead of the official release, in-active-development LWJGL-based Java game that you can't just make a SDK out of. Usually, developers just announce an upcoming update to both modders and players then release it, just letting the modders keep up with the update by their own. They never give them a hand by giving them the very update before the update's official release like Mojang is doing. Mojang's pre-releases are the first of their kind. Correct me if I'm wrong, though.
So far, all of these bug-fixing updates concern major bugs. 1.4.5 concerns LAN issues, and as someone who prefers the new LAN feature than making a separate server I find this update very helpful. Consecutive pre-releases concerning only minor bugs or very tiny changes would indeed be something to complain about, because they would ruin the whole point of pre-releases.
probably, and it'll ROCK!
If you actually took your time to read the comments, you would have seen that the only reason I dislike them spamming updates is because the server I play doesn't update until a "stable" bukkit build or whatever. The server is still 1.2.5.
Well then you can continue playing on a 1.2.5 server or go somewhere else. Or you can sit back and wait patiently while the team works to get as many of the problems out of the game as possible. You can't blame Mojang for Bukkit being outdated.
FOILED AGAIN!
People, get it into your heads. A Pre-release means we WILL BE GETTING AN UPDATE SOON! that means mods, and everything else, can't update untill mojang stop doing these updates.
I like bug fixes as much as everyone else, but this is becoming a stupid amount of updates. it's meant to be a halloween update, and it's 17 days after already.
Also, if you actually check, there were 4 pre-releases for 1.4.4, and, for each one, there was going to be a full game update, however, due to some very unstable bugs, they made a new pre-release for the next update. CHECK, before you argue.
The opposite of updating is... well... not updating.
How, may I ask, would a bug get fixed if it doesn't get fixed?
Magic?
user: "mojang, theres bugs, fix them"
mojang: "ok, done"
user: " arg, my mods are broken and theres another bug"
mojang: "ok, fixed that too"
user: "STOP UPDATEING I WANT MY MODS BACK! oh and theres another bug"
mojang: " *facepalm* ok fixed that bug also"
user: " STOP UPDATING AND DO YOUR JOB TO FIX THE BUGS! GOSH!"
And as for you, random_guy_32, although it is nice to see a random fit of competence, a large percentage of the internet, as you have probably by now figured out is (or at least it seems) incompetent. That is why the internet is the place where nobody can take anyone seriously, and is also why on this very page, i predict that some derp will say " i hate bugfixes " dispite reading what i have just said.
You made my point, none of those were 'official' updates and what I said (you can re-read it if you like) was "no less than 3". What Mojang is doing here is known as "Crowd Testing" it's fairly common in companies which, unlike say Valve, do not have the man power to dedicate to an inhouse testing team. Now personally I think calling them Pre-releases is a nomenclature mistake on Mojangs part (perhaps a translation issue?) These really should, by industry standards, be called Release Candidates.
As for "and, for each one, there was going to be a full game update", there wasn't one. Now had there in fact been then I would fully agree with you.
No, that is not a good reason at all.
The reason I am saying it's stupid, is because Mojang are not addressing every issue they get, all at once. If they did that, then there would be no need for all of these updates.
You are 14, so you know less about what you're talking about than I do, plus, you still havn't got any excuse to say I don't know what I am talking about.
Ok sorry, i missed that point of 'no less than three'.
Mojang do have quite a bit of funds for an inhouse testing team now. The company has made somthing like over 160 million euro's just out of the PC Minecraft.
Apology accepted. See, we can work together after all
You might be surprised there, the number you are citing is gross (meaning before expenses) and a total of sales to date, That does not mean there is that amount liquid (spendable) on an in house testing team, After expenses many companies actually profit much less than is commonly assumed by those who do not know how business works ( I make no assumptions on your education, a lot of this is college level Business Administration and Accounting).
Now I will say this as a coder myself: Yes the rapid releases of sequential Release Candidates does make Modding challenging. This is true of any codebase one is working from... However a well structured Mod will require very little alteration to be made to work from the newer version, in many cases a re-compile to match the new obfuscation is all that may be needed.
In this latter case it's actually the MCP folks , who by nature of what they do are volunteer and unpaid, who need to keep on top of things.
annd more importantly when's 1.4.6 due out
in direct order of asking
yes
and
Frog knows.
Good on you Fuzzy, how difficult was it to patch? If my guess is right it was mostly just a recompile, correct?
Pre-release, snapshot, whatever you want to call it. It's not the "final" product, unless they otherwise state it. Which can always change depending on issues. Also yes while they can afford in-house bug testing, don't you think the public can break it faster? Usually people are doing all sorts of tasks, that even serious bug testers might not think about. You have countless people willing to bug test, report and give feedback on releases. I'm sure they felt that 1.4.4 would have been it, until they ran into some clear issues.
Even with say.. 10-30 bug testers (low example), would they find everything possible that's wrong? Compared to the thousands of bug testing players, I don't really think that's a fair comparison in all honesty. Players will do anything and everything differently, especially in such a diverse game such as Minecraft.
Mod devs are likely up in arms over the changes, but with vanilla being buggy would it really be that fun with mods sooner than later? Of course it would! Just then you see the game itself is buggy, then you'd be wanting to know the exact problems. Then rage about it on the mod page, or poke the Mojang staff to fix it and won't be happy either way. It's like having a Christmas gift that was exactly what you wanted, but you found a flaw with it and it's then not what you wanted.
That's mostly of course how people are, always want everything but refuse to compromise. Would you learn Java to help them solve things faster? Not likely or no is usually an answer, also people are prone to mistakes. Not to mention they want the game to evolve, while also fixing things which of course leads to problems. Just it's better than some companies, who make full upgrades cost you. Those "fixes" come in the form of expansions, while adding in their own problems too. Which take countless ages to even be addressed.
Mojang while they are large in value, have a low staff and it's hard to find the right individuals. Also there are other games they work on, so it's not like all the Mojang staff work for one game. There's countless hours no doubt, bug fixing and looking for solutions.
Even if they feel there's a solution and push out these snapshots or pre-releases, they ask for individual players to test for verification.
Then of course mod devs need to work with new things, which is all from their own free time. Just so you can enjoy something for free, so the least you can do is not make a huge rage about it. Simply because things are changing, being fixed and other things come up. Doesn't mean you reporting and helping is a bad thing, just going on about how bad constant updates are isn't helping. Be constructive and be part of the solution, don't make more problems by upsetting other individuals.