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Minecon Round Up

So this weekend Minecon 2015 occurred in London, bringing many fans of the game to the ExCeL Centre to attend what ended up being the biggest video game based convention ever. It also brought with it a lot of news of Minecraft content to come.

 

minecon2015logo

 

Firstly, updates to the original version of the game, the PC version, were announced during a panel. The End, the smallest of Minecraft’s other dimensions is due to get a makeover, adding more to it then just the single floating island that you fight the Ender Dragon in. Now it’ll contain much more to find and do, as well as new recipes related to it including the ability to craft the Ender Crystals that you smash during the big boss fight and placing them atop the columns will respawn the Ender Dragon although it won’t be possible to gain another egg upon defeating it. These new areas can only be accessed through something called the Ender Gateway although details about that aren’t fully known yet. In other areas things such as dual wielding of tools (e.g. pick in one hand, torches in the other) or the ability to make your avatar left-handed are on the plans as well as ‘enchanted arrows’ although Mojang admit that they’ve still some thinking to do about the balancing of such a mechanic; future updates will also add shields to the game.

 

TheEnderdragon

 

Then we move onto the two big other stories from the event, starting with Minecraft Windows 10 version.

 

The version was supposedly built to take advantage of Microsoft’s new OS and its features, and it’ll be offered free to all owners of the current PC version of the game while new players will need to play $10 to access the game and beta. That beta will start towards the end of this month on July 29th and will receive the same updates as the original Minecraft version which will also still exist as a separate game – Mojang have said that the Windows 10 version will not replace the original one that we’ve come to love.

 

Minecraft-Windows-10-Edition-Beta-Key-Art

 

Features for the new version will include:

 

  • Craft, create, and explore online with up to seven friends playing Windows 10 Edition Beta, through local multiplayer or with your Xbox Live friends online.
  • Play online and local multiplayer with other Pocket Edition players thanks to a free update, due to arrive soon after launch.
  • Multiple control schemes! Switch between controller, touch, and keyboard controls with little to no effort!
  • Record and share gameplay highlights with built-in GameDVR.
  • Help shape the future of Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta with our built player feedback mechanisms!
  • Chickens, zombies, pigs, boats, armed skeletons, potatoes, zombies, baby squids, enchantment tables, villagers, naked sheep, iron golems, potions, ghasts, pickaxes, carrots, and all the weird and wonderful goodness you’ve come to expect from Minecraft.

 

The other big announcement of course was the details of Minecraft Story Mode, a Telltale and Mojang collaboration game announced a few months back. It’ll be a five part series based around the adventures of a group of friends led by the player character called Jesse, voiced by actor Patton Oswalt. The group is famed for slaying an Ender Dragon and look up to a legendary group called The Order of the Stone. Then a “Terror” is unleashed which sees the group called upon for their help for which they decent to seek out The Order of the Stone to save their world. The description on the video trailer says that the journey will take them through the Nether, the Farlands (woo!), the End and “beyond”.

 

 

Personally as a long-time player of Minecraft the only thing that has me really excited from this list of big things is the news of upcoming content to the version I play – the PC version updates. The ability to dual wield is something that players have been wishing was a thing for ages, and the addition of shields to the game just makes a lot of sense at this point. Anyone who has ever tried to charge a skeleton knows how hard it is to get close to them when they shoot you with knockback and maybe with a shield it’d be possible to finally block them. The redesign of the End is something I can get behind because I feel it’s been a bit sparse and underwhelming since it was implemented (I mean seriously, it’s not the greatest arena for a final boss fight in my eyes) and I look forward to seeing what new End resources get added to the game.

 

Windows 10 version is an interesting one. In a way it kind of reminds me a bit of Realms, a bit of the console versions (not surprising as integration with the Xbox versions are being pushed as a feature) and I feel it’ll attract a certain type of player, ones who still enjoy the vanilla game and the console versions over the heavily modded scene. As I’m not one of those players I can’t see myself being too attracted by this version of the game personally, but I can see the attraction for those players. The fact that there’s a cap on the number of players at one time does put me off too, even if I generally don’t play with that many other players at once. The ability to have many in one instance was one of the vanilla game’s drawing points in my opinion and limiting it feels a bit like a tiny downgrade. It’s not out yet though so I’ll save most of my judgement.

 

I’ll also be saving it for Story Mode, which is a game that while I’m curious about I must admit I find a little bit confusing as to why it exists other than for money. Minecraft was always about building your own story, not playing through someone else’s (unless it was an adventure map, and even then you could just blow it up if you felt like it… and sometimes map makers would booby trap a map to make something amazing happen should you) so… is this a necessary game? Do we really need this? I’m not sure, but I’m willing to have my mind changed when the game releases.

 

MINECON-2015-Gaming-Cypher

 

Of course, this isn’t all that happened at Minecon this weekend, but they are some of the most notable things. I have my opinions on them but then I’m biased as I am and will always be a PC Minecrafter, heavily involved with popular modpacks and what they can offer to me for story ideas. Minecraft is a lot bigger than that now though, and even if some of it doesn’t fully grab my attention I can see how big this once small indie game has grown to the extent that its own event hit around 10 thousand attendees and ended up setting a world record and be happy to be a part of it along with so many other people.

 

I’ll see you in Minecraftia!


July 6th, 2015 by
This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2015 at 22:33 and is filed under Gaming, General, Multiplatform, PC, Playstation, Real Time Strategy, Xbox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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