Weekly TWP article dump

And another TWP article dump:

Snapshot 12w04a

Lots of new content in this snapshot:
- Cats have been added. More on this later.
- Newly generated structure: Desert wells. Not much information is found about this, other than than they can be found in deserts and that they're made of sandstone...
- Dispenser and normal sapling textures have been changed.
- Mobs in general have the new AI and will no longer try to jump over fences.
- skeletons and zombies will flee to darkness or jump in water once morning comes.
- Players going through vines are slowed down.
- New items are added: fire charge (works like flint and tinder, but only one time use, can be shot by the dispencer resulting in a blaze fireball, cna be crafted by combining coal, gunpowder and blaze powder), Jungle sapling, Bottle o'Enchanting (only in creative, will spawn random experience orbs when thrown...) and Spawn Ocelot egg (only in creative, will spawn a wild cat).
and something that's been changed in almost every snapshot: the language files have been updated. Chatting in Korean should be a lot easier now...

But there are some bug with this version:
- Because of the AI mobs seem to behave very strangely (spin in circles) when standing on beds of enchantment tables.
- Ocelots may get stuck in fences if they run into them.
- Zombies may stand still and only track you with their eyes
- A thrown Bottle o' Enchanting will not appear in SMP.
- Apparently someone (unauthorised) got into the language files and changed "Single Player" to "You are a NIGGER" in the Afrikaans language...

Other than that the game is fully playable as always. If you want to check it out: Client and server are up for download.

TheOtherRetard, news reporter.


Cats!

The latest snapshot introduces a new mob to the jungles: Ocelots, or wild cats. They are specific for Jungles, so you won't find them in any other biomes.
They are the second mob that is tameable (with fish this time) but it won't help running after them rightclicking, hoping to tame them.
They are the first mobs that can actually sprint (instead of just walking) and they have a very interesting AI: whenever you look around or move too fast they will run away and hide, making them hard to spot sometimes. (Note: they actually hide: if they flee from you they may actually jump behind a block where you can't see them and stay out of sight)
Taming one requires some patience: You have to stand still holding a fish, the wild cat will slowly get closer and only when they stand completely still near you you can tame them. Doing anything else will either shoo them away or will not result in a tamed cat.

Once you've tamed a cat it won't run away anymore and will change it's skin into one of 3 preset skins: a ginger (most common), a black and white (based on Jeb's cat Newton) or a siamese cat. Tamed cats will follow the player around, but not as strictly as wolves do. They also will get distracted by chickens and will kill them. Their kittens are pretty much the only baby mobs that don't have a giant head, so they're even more special to see.

Another trivia: They don't have any sounds yet. No random utterances, no hurt sounds (Yes, I did do some experimentation. No, I'm not proud of it, they were adorably staring at me while burning to death...)

As far as I've seen they don't attack anything besides chickens, so they're unless you have a chicken infestation they're pretty much useless. But yet so adorable...

TheOtherRetard, news reporter, cat person.


Minecraft News

So, weekly snapshots are regular as Coca Cola, what's in other news?

Minecraft Lego is closer to reality. The idea has been accepted by the Lego jury and will go to the development stage, the longest of all. No screenshots or photo's have been released yet, but we'll keep you updated once something appears.

Through Twitter someone has brought up the idea of slimes spawning in the jungle, on which Jeb replied the idea has already crossed his mind, so this may be a future addition to the game. Nothing is for sure, but a bit more content to the jungle biome wouldn't hurt.

Notch has released a poll to ask us if we would like to have some info on our way of playing logged. This would be anonymously (of course) and will log general info such as current game mode (single player, multiplayer), operating system (Windows? Mac?), how long you’ve been playing for (how long a game session is), and whether or not you’re playing the downloaded game, or the applet on the webpage. This would be send to the Minecraft.net database once every 10 minutes, so there would be almost realtime feedback.
The poll indicates a 84% liking the idea (out of more than 100,000 votes), so this may be implemented some time soon.

To anyone who had problems with Minecraft or any Mojang related issue: The web support guys have set up a Mojang help page. The page consists of a list of FAQ's that you can search either by topic or type in some keywords and it will give you the most relevant article. They keep monitoring the page and once they get questions that can't be answered with the current articles they'll add more so it will be answered.

That's about it for this week. Enjoy your Minecraft and we hope to see you next week.

TheOtherRetard, news reporter.

Now trying to schedule it. If you read this on Monday it worked, if you're reading this earlier (writing this on saturday) I failed somewhere...

-ThOR

TWP Articles

Oops, I forgot last weeks articles...

Adding them now

Snapshot 12w03a

As punctual as ever Jeb has released a snapshot where
- ladders have regained their collision boxes
- vines are climbable if they have a solid block behind them
- a new jungle biome with new tree types and leaves
- language files got updated
- dispensers with mob eggs will place the mobs instead of giving the egg
- zombies have new path-finding AI
- Wolves have new AI and can be bred

Now I need to update previous written articles... thanks a lot Jeb!
Anyways, I have absolutely no idea why the ladder regained the collision box, but I guess it has something to do with the vines being climbable now...
The jungle biome will eventually also contain biome specific mobs, but they aren't in the snapshot yet.

Go try it out wheneveryou can with the client and the server.

The_Other_Retard, News reporter

Minecraft News

Jon (Kagstrom, the AI programmer) has figured out some of the code and has separated the mobs' viewing direction from their walking direction. This means that when enemy mobs notice you they will keep looking at you while they will follow a path.
Still not sure what this means? Enemy mobs won't walk towards you in a straight line anymore, making it more difficult to predict where they're going and thus making it more difficult to beat them.
For anyone who wonders how this works, go try the newest Snapshot Jeb released, it has the new AI implemented for testing.
Enjoy!

The_Other_Retard, News reporter

Mojang News

The web team has announces that they are working on a decent a support system and account integration, so anyone who has problems with their accounts may be able to have them fixed soon.

Also, a web developper we announced to be joining Mojang, Wollay, decided not to join them after all. He valued his independence more and Notch did the same thing when starting Mojang (Notch would've been hired by Valve if he would've accepted the offer).

For anyone who wasn't online on wednesday the 18th: many of our beloved websites (Minecraft.net, Mojang.com, Playcobalt.com, ...)shut themselves down (even Wikipedia participated) to show people what the net may look like if the SOPA and PIPA bills would've passed in the USA.
Actually this is pretty confronting, because lots of owner of the websites tweeted that they wanted to check out their sites and only remembering they took it down for a day when staring at the blacked out screen.
Minecraft logins weren't affected (as we all noticed), only the in-laucher news feed was bloodred out of protest...
For more info: check Wikipedia or check out the various video's (check TotalBiscuit's here) on youtube. Google is still your friend, don't forget to ask him abouth this.

That's about it for this week, don't forget to check us next week, we will be back with more.
The_Other_Retard, News reporter

Now checking the scheduling options. Makes me forget less...

-ThOR

Movies

Ah, the movies.
The Art of telling stories with the use of moving pictures.

Yes, we all know examples of it, but I think most movies aren't as much art as I'd like them to be.
No, I don't define what is and what isn't art, but I know there are movies i go and watch for amusement, and others I go and watch because it's something I don't see that often.
No I don't watch movies all that often, I skip some because I don't have a TV close by but mostly because I really don't want to watch them.

Lots of movies remember the fact that they're supposed to tell stories (I've seen exceptions), but awkwardly few remeber that it's supposed to be an Artform. Lots of modern day movies seem to be made to show off the latest technologies, to make the experience as WOW as possible for people watching it, while forgetting you don't need huge explosions in SuperReal3D to have people impressed.

Let me compare the first Big Movie in 3D (Avatar) with one more recent one (Hugo)(watched it a few days ago). Avatar was a Huge success. Why? because of the 3D, the effects, the novelty of technics. It wasn't the story that reviewers were praising, it was the technique. Now 3D has become something of a gimmick for Big Budget movies with Big Explosions, while more storytelling movies still are in 2D (A Dangerous Method).
Now comes Hugo. Not that much action (almost none at all) but still wouldn't it be the same movie if they had released it in 2D. The "feel", the atmosphere wouldn't have been the same. I'm not going to tell you what Hugo is about, there are enough reviews out there to tell you that, but it's certainly a movie to be watched, especially if you tend to like steampunk (sorry, I had to include this, there's a lot of cogs and steam and copper and cast iron and mechanical stuff in it), movies and an Art-Nouveau timeframe.

What they did with 3D in Hugo is uncompareable of what they did in Avatar, and I regret that. If you take a look at the list below: most of them are movies where storytelling isn't only done by the characters, but also by the camera, the locations, the music and the time.
Too many movies nowadays seem to forget about that and I regret that...
Well, that's not entirely true. I do like a brainless movie from time to time. The remake of the A-Team some time ago, good for some laughs, but not something I would call art.

That's about it what I wanted to say...

For people wondering what movies I really enjoyed watching (listed without order):

• Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (don't forget the french audio, it's beautiful ...),
• The Matrix (the first one, everything that follows that is just increasing in WOW and decreasing in interest),
• Modern Times (by and with Charles Chaplin, ah, the Art, ah, the pleasure of watching),
• Inception (why don't you tip over?!!1!),
• The Great Dictator (Charles Chaplin again, beautiful parody on Hitler (Der Führer himself has watched it 2 times, mind you)),
• The Lord Of The Rings (I must say the entire trilogy is really worth the watch, but especially the first movie),
• Hugo (Duh),
• Bin Jip (korean movie, also known as 3-iron, the 2 main characters almost don't speak),
• The early Star Wars movies (ah, the old fashioned sword fighting),
• The newer Star Wars movies,
• ...

and that's about it that I can think of at the moment.

Oh, and I'd like to give you a Youtube movie that kinda gave me the idea of starting to write this article: The Backwater Gospel. Warning: blood, gore and creepyness is present. But still a good story.

-ThOR

Weekly Pickaxe articles 14/01

And my most recent articles, as promised, a day after official release of the Weekly Pickaxe.

Minecraft Update 1.1

Finally, an official Minecraft update has appeared. Everything that was in the snapshots has now been added to Vanilla with some extra's and some bugfixes. Let me sum them up:

- Bow enchantments (more on that in Bow Enchantments)
- Flaming arrows will set mobs on fire
- Cheaper Golden Apple recipe (surround an apple with gold nuggets)
- Leaves of normal trees now have a slight chance of dropping Red Apples
- 56 language translations
- Flat world option added, for super flat creative worlds.
- Slightly smoothed color transitions between biomes (No more hard edges on swamp biomes)
- Improved world generation (more hilly landscapes, beaches, ...
- Reduced brewing time to 20 seconds
- Added spawn eggs to creative (the colors of the eggs even look like the mobs)
- Added world type options (currently only super-flat and default)
- Removed collision box from ladders
- Adjusted the collision box on fence gates
- Fence gates react to redstone.
- Sheep eat grass and regain their wool
- Walking on farmland will not trample it, only falling will
- Pumpkins and melons do not need tilled land anymore to grow onto, dirt is fine enough
- Magma Cubes drop magma cream now
- NPC villages now spawn treasure chests in blacksmith shops
- New server settings in Server.properties: level-type, spawn-npcs, generate-structures

But a new update also means mods need to update. Just give the modders some time. No one can predict how fast they will update, just keep in mind modders are also human...

The_Other_Retard, News Reporter


Bow Enchantments

New thing in the latest Minecraft Update: Bow enchantments! Never mentioned, few times requested, but in the update anyway.
There are 4 enchantments available for the bow: Power, Punch, Infinity and Flame. The names sound pretty obvious, but I'll explain what they do anyway.
Power is simple: arrows shot with this bow deal extra damage. There are 5 levels of this enchantment and a fully charges shot with Power V will one-shot kill any passive mob.
Punch adds knockback to mobs, maxed at level III.
Infinity is maybe the most interesting of all bow enchantments: As long as you have at least one arrow in your inventory you will be shooting infinite arrows. Arrows shot this way are unretrievable, so you can't use them to farm arrows, but hey, you'll have infinite arrows. Only one level available because you can't have more than infinite arrows.
And the last one, Flame, is applied to any flaming arrow in game, so if you shoot an arrow (or a dispencer shoots it) through lava it will automatically receive this enchantment. It's effect is pretty clear: whatever mob the arrow hits will be set on fire. This should be tested on the Enderdragon. This enchantment also has just one level.

After doing some tests on my own (with SSP commands) I concluded it is possible to have a bow with all enchantments in one, you just have to be lucky enough to get it. I got lots of bows with only Power or Punch, got one with Flame and got one with Power V, Infinity I and Punch II... One shot kills on most mobs (zombies need a finishing shot and Endermen are just a genuine Pain In The You-Know-Where) and unlimited arrows as long as the bow isn't broken... I enjoyed myself...

So there you go. Everything on the new bow mechanics.

The_Other_Retard, News Reporter


Minecraft News

So, with the new update all previous snapshots became Vanilla. Now you can spawn mobs with their respective eggs, you can enchant bows and you can't bump into ladders anymore.

Minecraft Pocked Edition will receive an update in early february (february 8th according to Daniel Kaplan) which will include mobs and new blocks. Minceraft Pocket Edition will be going more survival than creative, unlike what the original idea was.

On Minecraft Merchandise: There is already lots of stuff for sale, but there might be added a soon-to-be-released Creeper Plushie (https://twitter.com/notch/status/156007083370745856). the picture is of a test product (with santa hat added) that Notch borrowed from the office. And by borrow he meant steal.

That's about it for general news for this week.
Don't forget to check us next week and see ya until then.

The_Other_Retard, News Reporter.

That's about it...
You'll see when I post more.

-ThOR

Turd (yes, anal humor intended) TWP dump

And more incoming:

16/12/2011
Minecraft awards.

Since Minecraft recently won the Video Game Award of "Best Indie title" I would like to do a small retrospective on the awards Minecraft got until now.

When Minecraft still was in alpha it already was recommended to be played by Rock Paper Shotgun, the Daily Record, Penny Arcade and Good Game. After this it only got better.
In December 2010 Good Game selected Minecraft as their choice for "Best Downloadable Game of 2010" title and Gamasutra named it the eighth best game of the year as well as the eighth best indie game of the year. More awards for "Best game of the year" were from Indie DB, Rock Paper Shotgun and PC Gamer UK.

At the March 2011 Independent Games Festival Minecraft was nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Technical Excellence, and Excellence in Design awards and received the community-voted Audience Award. At Game Developers Choice Awards 2011 Minecraft won the award for Best debut game, Best downloadable game and Most Innovative game award, winning every award for which it was nominated and also winning the GameCity's videogame arts prize.
On May 5, 2011, Minecraft was selected as one of the 80 games that will be displayed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum as part of "The Art of Video Games" exhibit that will open on March 16, 2012. And as we reported last week: even TIME Magazine has awarded Minecraft as highest in the top10 Games of 2011.

The most noted qualities that are cited for describing the awesomeness of Minecraft is primarily the freedom you get when playing the game as well as the simple but innovative way the game is designed. The biggest flaw is the lack of tutorial. Yes, you can find tutorials everywhere on the internet, but you must actually tab out or close the game, google it and find a instructive one as opposed to an easy ingame one...

And so all this lead to the VGA of 2011 wher Minecraft won the award for Best Independent Game and received third place for best PC game.
It has to be noted that since Minecraft development still is going on thanks to Jeb this may not be the last of awards Minecraft will receive.

I'll continue keeping a close eye on Minecraft news for you.
The_Other_Retard

Weekly Snapshot 11w50a

As weekly a "snapshot" is released by Jeb, with the client.jar (http://bit.ly/scPOSm) and the server.jar (http://bit.ly/sT51vw) downloadable for testing.
Much wasn't added, as Jeb was squashing some bugs that were in the previous Snapshot.
The changes in this version are: the sheep's grass eating has been expanded to tall grass, the Language support has improved, a few multiplayer spam protections were added and a few lines were added to the splash texts (those little yellow lines that bounce on the Minecraft Menu screen).

One thing I failed to tell with the previous Snapshot was the addition of mob-spawn-eggs. This gives you the ability to give yourself "mob eggs" in creative mode which spawns a mob when right-clicking and since they won't despawn anymore you can make add mobs to your custom maps and be sure they will still be there when someone plays it.

The_Other_Retard

Mojang News

The Mojang team and Oxeye Game Studio are working hard on getting Cobalt ready for pre-orders. For now the game is Windows only and heavily under construction. At the final release it supposed to have a full game editor to make complete game levels from scratch as well as new characters and npc's. The release of the pre-orders should also mean the new Mojang Account system will be up and running.

Mojang also started hiring more people to become "the most influential indie game development studio on Earth". They are only looking for developers at the moment, but this might change as the company will grow. Carl Manneh had more than 3000 applications to review and respond to in a few days. One is already hired, but he will only be revealed once the contracts are made.

People playing Minecraft in Europe at early hours (or very late in America) may have noticed the login servers were down a few times to update them. Everyone was warned by a big red box in the Minecraft News feed in the launcher. Everything went well thanks to Mollstam doing all-nighters.

We will be watching Mojang and Minecraft for you, tune in next week for even more.

The_Other_Retard

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Griefers

You may already have heard the next about Minecraft: "It gives the player complete freedom to do what they want". Like it or not, this also applies to griefers. Minecraft restricts very little in how much you can manipulate in the game. This was like this in alpha/classic and still is in the released version.

Do I support griefers? Yes and no.
Yes: they are playing and enjoying minecraft in their way, I can not forbid them from doing so.
And no: I wouldn't like them on my server or on a server I'm playing on.
But since Minecraft allows all this any server Admin should have the sense of limiting the actions of griefers. For example by adding a whitelist, by installing mod-monitoring tools (tools that allow mods and admins to see what modifications other players have while they're playing on the server (like x-ray mods, speedhacks, minimaps, Buildcraft, ...)) or simply by being online most of the time and banning griefers whenever they see one.

Also: don't provoke griefers. If you make a forumpost and type: "Iz hav new server, NO GREIFERZ!! I KILL THEM!!" you may expect griefers logging in to see how well you are at killing them while they grief the hell out of your server.

Another also: People tend to forget Minecraft is a game that comes with griefers progammed in the system (Creepers, Endermen and not to forget the Bane of Wooden Structures: Lightning), so being angry at player-griefers isn't that much of a point worth defending.

In short: a griefer destroying stuff on a server is not the griefers fault, he's just playing the game how he wants it. Whose fault is it then? The server admins for allowing these kind of players to the game.



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7/01/2012
Notch News:
Since there is very little news on Minecraft since our last issue so I bring you Notch news.

As he did a few times now Notch has joined the Ludum Dar contest where programmers receive a theme on which they must deliver a working in 48 hours. Notch liked his entry more than usual and continued it, making a christmas version of it and renaming it from Minicraft over to finally Minitale (and "snagging" the .com and .net domains for it). Only Notch knows where this is going.

In slightly related news: Notch has been voted "Person of the year 2011" on IGN.com. Yes, there were jokes and there were too much stating "Person of the Year is Persson!".

The_Other_Retard, News Reporter

Minecraft News
Most recent news states that Jeb finally has figured out what the imperative "fix ladders" meant (as stated in many tweets adesed to him) and he fixed it right away. Since Twitter doesn't allow very long messages the report itself is pretty cryptical and it's not shure what exactly got fixed.
Jeb and Notch both stated that the collision box for ladders got removed, what might result in some adventure-map puzzles becoming a lot more difficult, but this still isn't really confirmed.

Jon Kagstrom, the new AI programmer in Team Mojang is currently working on improving the AI in Minecraft (not yet in the Snapshot). His work will make it easier to add new behaviours to mobs. First goal will be adding breeding support to wolves, after that will follow more useful/interesting villagers.

Once I know more I'll report here.
The_Other_Retard, News Reporter

Mojang News:
Mojang hired some new people! Kristoffer Jelbring (@KrisJelbring) and Jon Kagstrom (@jonkagstrom). Jelbring is "a true Javascript ninja" according to Carlmanneh and will be mostly working on web stuff, while Kagstrom appears to be the promised AI programmer for both Minecraft and Scrolls. They haven't got a Mojang cartoony avatar yet, Junkboy should be working on it.

In other news: Cobalt is releasing smoothly, so I guess, since there's still no counter to see how many people already bought it. On Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDKFG8TzdO4) there are bugs being pointed out, custom maps being developed, just like custom map building tutorials...
During alpha (the current stage) Singleplayer and co-op General campaigns should be developed decently, just like multiplayer maps. For the "customizeable content" only the level editor is planned, while character, sound, weapons and background editors will follow after beta. The prices for Cobalt will be pretty much like Minecraft: 10 euro in alpha, 15 in beta, 20 after release.
For anyone who wants to check it out or play it in alpha: Cobalt Homepage (http://playcobalt.com/).

And Mojang hired one more. Now it's Wollay, currently making Cube World (http://wollay.blogspot.com/). It's a big, procedurally generated world, made of cubes, where you can mine, craft and build. BUT it's an RPG and not even playable except for the lucky few that help programming it. Notch has stated (http://i.imgur.com/OcGYF.png) Mojang will connect a keyboard to Wollay's brain and sell whatever game comes out. Except for that part everything is looking good for Mojang.

The_Other_Retard, News Reporter


Weekly Snapshot 12w01a

And another Snapshot got released with the following updates:
- Languages have been updated
- Color transitions between biomes got "slightly smoothed" (I sure hope they fixed the swamp transitions).
- Brewing time is now 20 seconds
- Enchantment tables are less random (still trying to figure out what this means)
- spawning eggs got colors more representing the mob they spawn
- Biome changes! In general they got more varied, but when starting a new world you can now choose between 'super-flat' and 'default'
- collision boxes on ladders got removed
- collision boxes on fence gates got aligned with the fences

Modding API is underway, but far from implemented...

The_Other_Retard, your favourite News reporter

 That's about it. I'll be posting all new articles the day after the Weekly Pickaxe will be updated

That's all for now

-ThOR

Second TWP Articles dump

Dumping more

As many of you probably have heard or argued: Minecraft looks a lot like Lego. It invites for creativity, with a couple of blocks and some imagination you can make interesting stuff and the possibilities are almost endless.
Now Minecraft and Lego are getting even closer together.

Lego recently launched a new service, called Cuusoo where subscribers can post ideas for "the next lego product". After some heavily supported ideas of the Minecraft community Mojang decided to add their own entry. Mojang also encourages the community to come up with creative ideas on what could be possible done with Lego, as some already have showed.

How well was the response for the Mojang entry? Well, it got the required 10.000 supports in less than 2 days and caused at least 3 server crashes at Lego because of high traffic.
The Lego Cusoo team responded the Minecraft idea went on to the "review phase" where a professional Lego Jury will examine the concept on general Marketing strategies (as any other Lego product must go through). It may take 2 weeks before a go/no-go decision will be made.
After this comes the Design phase, a Production run and finally the release after several months.
This may seem a long time, but hey, you'll be able to play Minecraft even in Real Life!



by The_Other_Retard
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Weekly Snapshot 49

As promised a Weekly Snapshot got released again. Now sheep eat grass so their wool regrows, the farmland problems got fixed together with some bugs and last but not least: Languages got added.
Now for the languages, they aren't finished yet, so there might be some bad translations, some may be missing and some may be just plain ridiculous. Originally Jeb relied on the entire internet for help on translating the stuff, but since the entire internet isn't famous for being nice the file got griefed and it became limited to dedicated members of the community.
Client .jar is for download here
Server .jar is for download here

For anyone wondering: the version number is YYwWWx, where YY is the current year, WW is the current week (yes, it's the 49th week already) and x is "a", but may turn to "b" or even "c" if there are more snapshots released in that week...

The_Other_Retard
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Mojang News - Account Overhaul

As Mojang is expanding, developping new games and attracting more people they decided to improve their account system, so it will be useable with all Mojang Games (Cobalt, Scrolls and maybe future ones).

With the new account system Players will be able to have multiple profiles on one account.
The sign in name will be the e-mail adress, while profile names will be changeable but they will be unique for every Mojang game. There's been a discussion going on on Reddit for anyone who wants to comment on it. A problem that surfaced was the whitelisting of accounts: if you change your name you may not be whitelisted on your server anymore (Mollstam is looking into it).

The reason for this change is to keep it simple for people playing minecraft and want to play other Mojang games and to be able to have several Minecraft profiles under the same roof.

This account change will happen some time soon, so Cobalt will be able to use it, while the almost 18 million (4 million of them premium) Minecraft accounts may optionally (starting an undefined date) do this until a big overhaul early next year.

The_Other_Retard
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What's going on with Minecraft?

Notch may still be on vacation playing Skyrim (as stated by himself at the end of an interview), but Jeb is giving Minecraft the development that was promised us. He has rementioned a idea that was mentioned by Notch some time ago: in-game books with customiseable content. This will be helping adventure map maker a lot, since they wouldn't need to cover entire walls in signs or add a load of message.txt files to their maps so they can tell a story (maybe even custom made paintings that notch has mentioned to have the same file-handling system).

Minecraft Pocket edition for Android was on sale for 10 cents in euro's, pounds or dollars for a day. A survival mode for the Pocket edition is officially anounced, but they warned it will be a bit different from the PC version to fit the touch interface. No dates are anounced yet.

Reviews keep praising Minecraft and not just on the usual Gamer websites. Wednesday was announced Minecraft received the first place in the TIME's Top 10 Games of 2011, rated higher than Portal 2, Skyrim and Battlefied 3.

That's about all for this week, I'll be back next week with more news

I hope the HTML codes translate well when posting

-ThOR

First TWP articles

Ok, I noticed I actually also write lots of stuff for the Weekly Pickaxe. I decided to also post articles I wrote on here, to have a bit of an archive of stuff I wrote.
This will first of all be a dump of articles of previous issues...

First is the first few articles I wrote for TWP

 Minecraft News December 2nd 2011
By The_Other_Retard.

Minecon is over and Minecraft finally got released, now what?

Well, Minecraft development goes on, even if Notch is taking a break for a while Jeb is full on squashing bugs where Wiki members point him to.

But even if Minecraft 1.0 is already out for almost a week there are still some mods waiting to be updated. Main reason was the dependency of lot of mods on Minecraft Coder Pack, which got released only a few days ago. Lots of modpacks still are waiting for some core mods to be updated
The Technic pack for example still is missing an IndustrialCraft², as Buildcraft is already available for the Final Release.
Because of this lots of mods provide support for earlier versions of Minecraft, especially 1.8.1, while Minecraft Nostalgia and Minecraft Downgrader enjoy lots of downloads...

A very positive aspect of the most recent update is the absence of th usual patch-updates. There's been only one and only for the server.jar, so most Minecrafters are still playing the 1.0.0 version. The reason for this almost unusual update is the "leaking" of PreRelease files, basically unfinished versions of the game so the Minecraft Community could test the game for bugs and glitches. Most of it was communicated with Jeb through MinecraftWiki pages, which resulted in a very smooth Minecraft release.
A fun fact with these PreReleases was the accidental presence of some debug features, like the 1x1 glass towers in Prerelease 3, or the Camera Mode in PreRelease 5. It was very quickly communicated (mostly through Twitter) that they were debug features.

One feature Notch said he felt sorry for not being in the most recent update was the Modding API, as he was promising this for a long time, but it should be added very soon.

Yesterday (December 1st) Jeb released a "weekly Minecraft snapshot", a .jar file of minecraft with the version of Minecraft Jeb is working on at the moment. This gives voluteers of the Community the opportunity to dive in and search for bugs to help Jeb in debugging it further. Downloadlinks are on the [url=http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/833222-new-prerelease-is-available/]Minecraft Forums[/url] and on [url=http://twitter.com/#!/jeb_/statuses/142250239871561729]Twitter[/url].


-----JUST IN-----

Notch has anounced on his [url=http://notch.tumblr.com/post/13633493969/och-med-dom-orden-sa-passar-jag-micken]Tumblr Blog[/url] that from now on Jeb will be the lead developper of Minecraft. This in fact doesn't change much as Jeb already was doing the major part of the development, but now he will be officially in charge of Minecraft while Notch will be helping out as well as starting a new project.
So Jeb will working on Minecraft by himself until January when a new programmer will be joining him. Jeb feels his main responsibility now will be creating a Modding API, but he warns the release will be not sooner than March.


That's about all about the state of Minecraft at the moment.
I hope to write more.

- ThOR



Outtakes:

For those who didn't or couldn't make it to Minecon there are lots (really LOTS) of video's, blogs, vlogs, tweets, threads and post to be found only about it. Just a simple Google search will do to give you enough stuff to fill some hours of not playing Minecraft.(didn't want to add this as it's pretty obvious for everyone who follows minecraft stuff)

 That was one ... I think I'll need a few posts to dump all this...

*opening next .txt file*
Hrrm, even more...
Ok, next one will be spread over 2 posts.

Weird?

There are people who cry when they hear folk music, no matter what.

There are people who eat paper and have never really felt like questioning it.

There are people who haven't had sex yet and people who had sex eight times this week and you can't tell them apart because they're equally kind and well-adjusted and happy.

There are people who are on the internet until 4am and you assume they're looking at porn but they aren't, they're reading about underground rivers and concrete graveyards and abandoned subway stations.

There are people who you've known for ten years and one day you realise you've never once seen them go to use the bathroom and it's because that's the way they've wanted it.

There are people who talk to themselves and learn a lot from the conversation.

There are people who almost never smile but are almost always happy.

There are people who plan way too much ahead, but never mind when nothing goes according to the original plan.

There are people who people know entire albums of their favourite artist by heart but can't remember what they had to do at work when someone asks them about it.

There are people who like sandwiches but refuse to eat the part that's in between their thumb and index finger.

There are people who can't sleep unless it's completely dark in the room.

There are people who see fantastic tales in everything they do and write stories about it without ever letting someone else read it.

And they tell me there are people who are normal, but I don't know what they look like because I've never met one, and neither have you, so why not compare yourself to real people instead.



Based on viruscomix.com, I've added a few myself.
I'll never claim I made these all up myself. Actually, I made up very little, sometimes I just described some of my friends.

-ThOR

Writesel

 Some time ago (and this "some time" could've easily be a few years) I wrote something. I'll paste it here.

One

He's awake, but doesn't move out of lazyness

The warmth, the scents, the sounds of the world, ...
He registers all this until his mind is awake.

He slowly stretches to get rid of the sleep in his body.

Finally he stands up.
He goes outside.
The world is, Like always. Alight, but also with shadows.

He is all-one. His all is one, not more and no less.

Why is he alone?

He hasn't found anyone to be two with.

Is the two-being necessary?

No idea, He'd like to experience it, but if there's no-one it won't be possible.

He actually isn't looking anyway.

You look for something when you lost it.

You can't lose what you never had so you can't go and search for it.

Is he happy?
Why not, he is, and he will be. Is more needed for happiness? He's alone with himself, he isn't chased, he isn't missing anything, so why shouldn't he be happy?

He loves Silence. No, not silence, ...

Traquility.

He loves tranquility.

As long as there is tranquility, it is. Worries aren't present. Als long as there's tranquility he doesn't have to worry. As long as the tranquility is present.

How long will it be?

No idea, but if would've known therewouldn't be any tranquility because he'd be worrying.

Tranquility makes time, tranquility makes tranquile, tranquility makes more tranquility.

Tranquility makes time. Who has little time can use some tranquility to make some time. Who has more time has more tranquility, and with tranquility comes less worries.

...

He's hungry, he has to eat.

You have no idea how many folders I opened and closed before I found this. Folders I haven't opened in a few years... If computers had digital dust it would've been clouding my computer right now...
So I wrote this "some time ago" and send it to a few people, saved it in some folder and forgot about it. then some folderchanges, some reorganisations and some years later I forgot how it was called. Not only was it hard to find, I had to translate it, which wasn't easy. Original was in Dutch (I'm from Antwerp in Belgium), if anyone wants to have a look at it I can post it...
The translating wasn't really easy. For example the "tranquility" I refer to is something like "peace of mind", "quiescence", "calmness" or "quietness" or something... In dutch it's simply "rust".

Anyways...

Now it's made it on the World Wide Web and I'm actually quite happy it's here.
My main reason for writing this was an idea. First I had this story of some unknown creature that doesn't get described throughout the story. Then I made it more extreme by abandoning any description of place, time, object whatsoever, only reflecting thoughts.

Yes, it says "He goes outside", but there's absolutely no way of telling where this outside is, or what the inside is. Maybe he just went outside his "room", maybe outside his "home". And the "alight" is also arbitrary: what is the light? Might be the sun, but an electrical lamp is also a possibility. And what if some other sensorial organ (other than the eye) registers something as "alight"?

But still, while reading this I keep comparing it to a human being, I keep imagining it being human. I think this mainly is because we only know ourselves of reasoning this way, we can't possibly know how some other creature (or human being for that matter) processes this information, or reasons as here described.
Even I don't really know what this creature is or what it's supposed to be. I only know what I wrote down.

This was one of my "writesels". Maybe I'll write down more. There's an entire world evolving in my head... But it'll take some time to write them out. Anyways...

Any suggestions of what you think of it are always welcome.

Till the next time

-ThOR

On Minecraft

The context you may find my name most in is probably Minecraft.

For anyone who doesn't know what it is: Minecraft is a voxel based sandbox game, sandbox in a way that every block your world is made of can be picked up and placed elsewhere. As stated a few times, it technically isn't a game where you get to complete a set goal or kill baddies all the time. Sure, sometimes the baddies pop up and you wave a sword at them until they go away, but that's mostly not why you are there for.
I'm there for experimenting, for building, for community and awesomeness. A dragon-rollercoaser-mountain, some TNTcannons, a viking-styled longhouse, a Sphinx and an underground jumpy-dangercourse are some of my builds and I enjoyed building them, trying to figure out how to get some stuff to work best.

One thing with Minecrafts highly propagated freedom is you are also free to join a server and annoy other people for your own fun. One (popular) example is Team Avolition on Youtube. As I wrote in a story for the Weekly Pickaxe I do not hate them for doing their stuff, I must say I enjoyed watching Team Avo's videos, but I DO hate them for destroying my stuff.
But hell, I can't blame them, the only one to blame is the server owner for not protecting their server well enough.
And I'm glad I don't own a server.

Anyways.
For some reason I really like playing Minecraft.
I like it so much that I'm still actively playing it after having it for over a year. Only CounterStrike 1.6 has done longer... Well, the main reason most people play is because there still are updates to the game's content. For example my brother got bored playing Minecraft a few months ago and a few days back decided to fire it up again. Now he's amazed by the ravines (he already covered the walls of one in wood and made it his home), he's digging through the forums and the wiki just to see what he missed and he keep bothering me with questions.

I even am participating in a Minecraft Magazine (as said before, the Weekly Pickaxe) as a news writer. Also, I have to say, while typing all this I actually should be promoting it as it's fourth issue is ready. Anyone who wants to follow Minecraft news, read Minecraft stories or just see some Minecraft stuff: head over there. Weekly updates will keep you up to date.

I'm trying to figure out what else I could say, but I think this is about it.
To anyone reading this: I hope you enjoyed it and till the next time.

-ThOR

Time

Looking around on the Internet I found a little blog. Reading around I found an small post on Time.
Time.

What IS Time?
I'd say Time is the fourth dimension, the one we (as human beings) can observe, but have no influence on, we can't change it, we can't hold on to it, we can't even comprehend it entirely.

Look at the escape button.
Now look at the escape button again.
The escape button you see now is not the exact same button you saw first, it's parameter 'Time' has changed. This results in never being able to have the exact same thing again if you take Time in account.
You'll have to be satisfied with only having the exact same molecules again. Maybe not exactly the same molecules, because even those change over time. No, the exact same concept...

Will we ever be able to travel to the past?
I think not.
Well, I think not, unless we start a new Timeline, a new universe so to speak. (yes, I support the multiverse theory).
Why do I think so?
Just the paradox you can create by travelling in Time and by doing so disabling yourself from doing so is terrifying (I think it is). The only possible  way out of this is splitting the Timeline in one where you disappear the moment you travel and one where you appear in the past and change everything.

Will we be able to travel to the future?
Easy enough, just by being.
Other ways may be freezing yourself in and defreezing at the required moment, being warped to the future or any other science-fictiony way of getting there.

Any other Time related questions may be asked...

-ThOR

Online Activity

Oh, and might anyone wonder: Yes, I'm the same as The_Other_Retard on Minecraft and the Minecraft forums. And yes, I'm also the news reporter on the Weekly Pickaxe.
Yes, I'm also on Steam, all with the same name (underscores may be optional).

That's all for now

But I'm dissapointed by the way too small entry...

-ThOR

Gaius Baltar

Let's post something on my favourite, oblivious character: Dr. Gaius Baltar.
When watching the entire 4 seasons of BattleStar Galactica I kinda liked his way of stumbling on stuff he didn't want to stumble on and his way of talking inconspicuously to his imaginary friend and hoping no-one notices it. I grinned when (Spoiler Alert) there appears to be some kind of cult around him.

Why is it I like his quirks?
Maybe because his clumsyness and sometimes his unability to change something to the way he wants it is a bit recogniseable, but on the other hand, I'm glad I don't have to carry that burden of being responsible for the survival of an entire race.

Other than that: he's just so cute when nothing is going according to his plan...

Wait, that didn't come out straight enough...
Hrmm.

Never mind

So, anyone else having a favourite character?

-ThOR

Hi there.

Hello world!

When being tought how to program these two words are mostly the first ones you'll make appear on the screen, be it in a Javascript popup, in an .exe or even in a console...
But hell, I'm starting my First Blog Post with this. Just for the fun of it.

And to see how my page looks with some content on it.

So, hi there.
To anyone that happens to stumble upon this blog: Welcome, even though I may very well not know you.

I'll tell you more about me in later posts. I'll tell you now why I started this.
I tend to have my ideas and opinions. Sometimes I have them for a long time without letting anyone know what they are. Recently (pretty much today) I decided to put those opinions online.
What will these opinions be?
Mostly stuff I encounter in my daily life (games) or stuff I notice or come up with during the day which will be mostly philosophical.

Till next post

-ThOR

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