Weekly TWP article dump

Hmm. I don't know if Issue 8 of the Weekly Pickaxe has been released yet, but I'll release my articles already.

Mojang news:
Carl Manneh signed lots of stuff this week: Not only a contract for the new Mojang office, but he hired no less than 2 extra developpers, bringing the total count of Mojang employees on 20.
To anyone waiting for news on the Minecraft Xbox release: the coverart is more or less finished. of the release of it there isn't really a date, only "spring", so we'll have to wait a bit more.


Minecraft Snapshot 12w05b

Weekly Snapshot!
No new additions, mostly tweaks and bugfixes:
- Mob related bugs got fixed.
- Some new mob behaviours got added, for example to the creepers: now they also have the new pathfinding AI.
- Villagers will try to detect village houses and will try to live in them. So when it gets dark villagers go inside to hide and come out again when it's light again.
- Villagers are able to open and close doors. This ability could possibly be extended to many other mobs, but for now it's a villager only feature. There is a small bug with this: they can't register wether a door is open or closed, which may lead to villagers being stuck opening an opened door...
- Ocelots are easier to tame and cats can be told to sit.
- Creepers run away from cats and wild ocelots, so they are useful after all.
- Updated language files (now with 50% less profanities!)
- Lava received sounds: well, bubbling in particular, but this will make it easier for the player to know when there's lava around
- Abandoned mineshafts received an extra generation feature: When they cross ravines they won't have any more floating poles, since it will generate bridges between the two ends.

This snapshot has been reuploaded pretty quickly because there was a fatal bug that made the game crash on startup...
Also there were some gameplay bugs that accidentally were added and got fixed in an other release of the snapshot, resulting in a "B" in the end of the current version. these bugs was the Shift-Clicking while crafting consuming all items and giving only one crafted product in return. with this upload also came the ablility of making the cats sit with an empty hand.

Downloads for the client and the server are available for download as usual.

For the next update some flaws are already being fixed. Jon tweeted that the AI will know if a door is open or not.

-TheOtherRetard

Minecraft news

Anyone having the Minecraft pocket edition?
Well, if you have it expect an update during the next week.

As you noticed, there's a bit of door changes comming up in a next update. Jeb has already posted a reddit thread explaining some difficulties on doors in Minecraft (the right hinged doors in a double door are actually lefthinged and opened when closed. This is why they react weird to redstone). this may be changed in the next update but it will require you to check all doors in your world to check if they are still like they should be.

-ThOR