14 DAY TRIAL // Minecraft creator Mojang has released its fourth update in less than a week for players of the popular sandbox crafting game, addressing yet another issue after adding several new features and enhancements, including a security fix for the infamous “Heartbleed” bug.
On April 9, the Swedish studio outed version 1.7.6 of the highly acclaimed Minecraft for desktop platforms. The release focused on patching bugs, but also included “a few updates to make Realms even better than it already is and prepares Minecraft for the renaming feature that will eventually allow you to rename your player.”
The developer noted at the time that Minecraft 1.7.6 was to drop compatibility with 1.7.5 servers and earlier versions. Players were urged to update their servers to 1.7.6, marking another important step in preparing for the upcoming Minecraft 1.8 release.
“Servers should automatically update all player profiles to the new format, but please make sure that you are in the correct server mode (online mode/offline mode) when you start the 1.7.6 server for the first time, because profiles are not compatible between these two server modes,” the developer said.
On April 10, Minecraft 1.7.7 rolled out with the announcement that skins and capes were being distributed through servers. Starting with this version, the Server Resource Packs option is now per-server, and the minimum setting for the FOV option is 30 instead of 70. Mojang again warned that players updating to 1.7.7 would lose backward compatibility with 1.7.2 - 1.7.5 versions.
On April 11, yet another round of patches was deployed for player skulls UUID incompatibility, invert mouse setting defaults, skin problems, and server interruptions.
Today, the latest in this string of bug-fix updates is being deployed. Addressing a bug ID’d as MC-52817, the patch is described as follows: “‘Add player’ packets and ‘Remove’ player’ packets being sent out of order.”
Available for all supported platforms, Minecraft 1.7.9 is a free download for all existing players, and there’s a demo version available to all newcomers as well. Interested parties will require a decently-specced computer, 1GB of RAM, and Java 1.6 or later.
The Pocket Edition installment for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad remains unchanged and has recently climbed the ranks in the iTunes App Store’s “paid” apps category. Sitting at the top of the chart, the game remains one of the most popular downloads on iOS platforms years after its inception.
Download Minecraft 1.7.9 for Mac OS X
Download Minecraft 1.7.9 for Windows