New Minecraft Update:

General fixes:
* players and mobs in lava or fire no longer spam sound effects
* getting hit with a higher damage while recovering from a smaller one now works as intended
* lava flows further in the Nether
* zombie pigs eventually forgives
* added support for custom skin packs
* fixed duplicate buttons when resizing screens
* zombie pigs and ghasts no longer get hurt by fire or lava
* fixed volume sliders now saving properly

Multiplayer fixes:
* hellworld=true no longer overwrites old save chunks. Player positions will still break if you switch it on a running server, though
* boats are now visible to other players
* minecarts move nicer
* fishing kinda sorta works, but needs more work
* sheep and cows look like sheep and cows now
* buckets work now
* fixed stairs being really difficult to destroy
* increased the timeout before “Took too long to log in”
* made it possible to ride carts and boats
* added (after lots of work) the ability to steer server-side boats
* added “no-animals” setting. if true, animals will immediately vanish
* added support for more animation settings. Currently it’s just the “riding” animation, but the same system will be used for sneaking

More info about custom texture packs on the post (linked above).

I also came across this funny faux Minecraft LARP.


But I guess it's not really funny unless you've played the game.

Unless you like assisted suicide ... or tricking friends into doing it and watching them freak out and panic as they try every method available to survive... only to fail

How do you get monsters (mobs) in multiplayer? Do you have to run a custom server or something?

This was in the changelog for 1.21.1 (Nov 5):

Quote from: http://notch.tumblr.com/post/1486843146/minecraft-alpha-1-2-1-minecraft-server-0-2-3

* Attempted to fix the portal dupe bug where you could exit through a different (new) one than the one you entered through.

So it should be mostly fixed, but I think he's still working on it.

Hope so - because nether portals acted VERY strange when I played with them, resulting in 5+ portals appearing on my map after going back and forth a couple of times O_o.

I guess the game didn't "link" portals, but creates/uses based on world coordinates, and there is/was some fsckup in this.

Minecraft will be entering Beta phase on December 20th, at which point the price will increase to 15 Euros (from 10). If you've been interested all this time but still haven't purchased, now is the time!

Oh, and this is important:

We will also change the license to remove the line that promises all future versions of the game for free. Please note that this change only affects people who buy the game after December 20, so if you got the game for during alpha, you will still get all future updates for free, despite this change. A promise is a promise.
Buying the game during beta will include all updates up until release, of course, and bug patches will be free.

So it's really important to buy now if you think you'd be interested, otherwise you may have to pay for expansions.

Notch clarified on Twitter:

Anyway, buying during beta = get everything up to and including release version for free. Expansions might cost.

So one of the features added (somewhat) recently was the ability to use custom graphics packs. I've just been using a customized Painterly Pack (slightly modified in an image editor for personal taste).

But this one takes the cake for creativity:


The only catch is that it uses higher resolution textures than Minecraft natively supports, so you have to patch MC to enable the "HD" textures.

ScribbleCraft Texture Pack

And speaking of the Painterly Pack, they've just released a Christmas Themed texture pack.

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Minecraft was recently voted in as PC Gamer UK's Game Of The Year..

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• http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/12/31/pc-gamer-uks-game-of-the-year/

I forgot to mention something pretty incredible: Minecraft recently surpassed the One Million purchases mark.

That's really amazing for an independent game made by a couple people without a marketing team or publisher.

Crunchgear has an article up about it

On Wednesday, it was announced that a game called Minecraft had hit a million sales. This probably isn’t the first time that you, a denizen of the internet, have heard that word. But unless you’re in the habit of following up on every indie game mention you happen to see, there’s a good chance this particular title might have slipped under your radar.

[...]

Why it matters

Sounds interesting, you say, but why should I care that a few guys have put together a cool little indie game? The reason you should care is because a team of four or five people using free libraries and cross-platform tools have just made a mockery of the last five years of franchise-oriented, $50 million budget, yearly-release, AAA game development. And it’s not just a fluke. The Humble Indie Bundle, World of Goo, Braid, and a number of other extremely low-budget titles have electrified the gaming community, while games with millions in marketing budget like APB and Kane & Lynch fall flat on their face critically and commercially. Gamer discontent with these barren blockbusters is palpable, and Minecraft is the new poster boy for it.

It's true. I bought Minecraft in December of 2009 for 10 Euros (about $15 USD at the time) when it was essentially a giant LEGO Land (now the free Classic mode) because it seemed kinda fun at the time. I never imagined it would turn out to be what it is. And even though I probably spent $200-$300 (if not more...) on video games last year by far the game I played the most and enjoyed the most was my $15 purchase from 2009.

XKCD does Minecraft:

And opiates. Minecraft and opiates. Sounds like a match made in heaven ^_^

Slightly NSFW:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/2680-Minecraft

It's actually one of his more positive reviews. He actually likes the game!

Don't forget to read his Extra Punctuation article where he talks even more about his love for Minecraft, and what could make it even better.

Hah, pretty sweet video, Josh