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

MCX360 - Over a Million Copies Sold, and Counting

That's right, Mojang and 4J Studios' Xbox 360 edition of indie hit Minecraft has already sold more than one million units worldwide on XBLA since its release on Wednesday, May 9th! MCX360 sells for 1600 MS Points, or $20; in short, the title generated more than $20 million in less than a week. Notch tweeted the day afterwards that the game had become profitable (saw more money gained in sales than spent in creating it) within the first full day of sales.

Microsoft Studios, while initially non-specific about the sales numbers after launch day, confirmed that MCX360 broke all previous sales records on Live Arcade, beating out the previous fastest-selling game on the platform, Trials Evolution, which sold over 100,000 copies in a day, by over four times the numbers.

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Digital Diamond - "Into the Rabbit's Hold"

YouTube film team PrettyAwesomeStudio has cooked up a new series for your enjoyment, and it already shows a ton of promise! What is it about? In short, a rich uncle has given his massive, opulent mansion to his nephew. The problem is, there are two nephews, and he didn't say which one was getting it! This is the first episode in the series, and shows incredible promise with a solid storyline, clever humor and high quality production - take a look! Back to Top

Happy Birthday, Minecraft!

Look familiar? It might not for many of you, but anyone who has been around since May of 2009 should find this oddly familiar - this was one of the earliest demos of Minecraft in its infancy! Yes, the game we know and love today wasn't much to look at back then - grass blocks and cobblestone, and not much else. It's amazing when you stop to consider - with all the potions, hunger, myriad critters, redstone - just how far the game has come from such humble beginnings. It's been an amazing process to see unfold over the years, to be sure.

It wasn't long ago that Minecraft saw 28 million registered users and nearly 6 million purchased copies , and the number just keeps growing. Along with the runaway success of Minecraft - Pocket Edition (over a million sales) and Minecraft - XBOX 360 Edition (over 400,000 in the first 24 hours!), the epic block-builder continues to take the world by storm. Updates continue to pour forth for the PC version, including the highly anticipated Mod API, NPC trading and so much more. Pocket Edition becomes more and more Survival-esque, and MCX360 - while currently similar to Beta 1.6.5 - has exciting changes on the horizon.

From all of us here at the Minecraft Forum, we wish Minecraft a very happy 3rd birthday! Congratulations to everyone at Mojang for producing such an incredible game, and to the entire community - every single one of you - for making this game one of the most incredible games in the world!

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In the last 24 hours, 127,468 people registered, and 13,375 people bought the game. On average, this means that a little over thirteen thousand people buy a new copy of Minecraft every single day, and that number keeps growing! Back to Top

MCX360 Smashes Sales Records - Third Platform Dominated

It was announced in a statement released by Microsoft that Minecraft: 360 Edition has surpassed all previous sales records on the XBOX Live Arcade, selling more digital copies in the first twenty-four hours of launch than any other title! There are already over four hundred thousand ratings for the game on XBLA, and it clearly has a strong start in the multiplayer community.

Official figures have not been released yet regarding the exact number of sales; it has been estimated, based on the game's ratings by players, that sales exceeded four hundred-thousand copies within 24 hours of going live, worldwide.

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition was developed by 4J Studios in conjunction with Mojang and Microsoft Studios, and introduces new gameplay experiences such as a unique crafting menu, game tutorials, and split-screen multiplayer as well as online multiplayer for up to eight players over Xbox LIVE, with split-screen, network play, or any combination thereof.

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Minecraft + Mojang News: Minecraft on Xbox & Huge Biomes!

This week, David & Toby talk about - what else? - Minecraft on the 360! In addition, they take a look at the new features of the most recent Snapshot, 12w9a, including the incredibly awesome Huge Biome feature. Take a look! Back to Top

Credit to ebrad for the picture!

It’s time for the weekly snapshot. Mojang is continuing to work on separating the client from the server, and has fixed a bunch of stuff related to that transition. What else got added? Check it out below:

• Added cocoa plants to jungles
  
• Added a “large biomes” world type
  
• Added specific names for the different sandstone and smooth stone blocks

Improvements continue to pour into each snapshot with every passing week, and the new, improved SSP/SMP system continues to be streamlined, adopting a feel not unlike what MCX360 currently uses to connect players to one-another. Want to try this sleek update out?

Get the snapshot here:

Client: Download here

Server: Download here

The client now comes with both the client-side and the server-side JAR files. The file called “minecraft.jar” should be in your “.minecraft/bin” folder as usual, and the “minecraft_server.jar” file should be in a folder called “.minecraft/server”. Back to Top