The game becomes much more multiplayer-oriented with the future patch

Jul 6, 2012 18:21 GMT  ·  By

Mojang has confirmed the date when the next big update for the hugely popular Minecraft will be released, saying that patch 1.3 is scheduled to appear on August 1.

Minecraft is one of the most popular games in the world, managing to reach tens of millions of players across platforms like the PC, Xbox 360, and various mobile phones.

Now, after setting new records on the Xbox 360, Mojang has confirmed that update 1.3 for the PC version is scheduled to arrive on August 1.

The patch, like many others, is quite big and includes all sorts of changes for the game, the most important of them being that it now has a more distinct multiplayer-oriented feel.

Mojang rounded up some of the most important changes in update 1.3 for Minecraft and grouped them in three categories: the good, the bad, and the ugly, so check them out below.

Minecraft 1.3: The Good Lots and lots of bug fixes and new features. Players who mainly play in multi-player on servers should enjoy a smoother and more stable experience, as this has been our focus of the development. We've looked over the network packets and added encryption to prevent session stealing. Dinnerbone has updated the chatting screen, to allow for easier editing and clickable links.

The single/multi-player merge has added the possibility to share your single-player worlds with friends who are on the same local network. It has also enabled players to use multi-player-like commands in single-player (such as /gamemode and /give), but only if cheats are enabled.

We've added emeralds, emerald ore and a trading system that makes it possible to buy items from villagers. Villagers will add and remove items depending on what you buy.

We've added the possibility write in books and leave stories for other people.

We've added new terrain features, and you can choose to begin the game with a "bonus chest," to get you started quicker.

We've added tripwire, so you can create new traps and contraptions.

We've also added new stairs, new half-slabs, cocoa plants and tweaked dispensers, leaves, cauldrons, levers, gravel, pressure plates, cookies, buckets, boats, minecarts, ice, furnaces... Plus you get magic orbs from mining and smelting (and not just killing monsters)!

Minecraft 1.3: The Bad Since single-player has been turned into a shell on top of a background server, the game's resource requirements have increased. When playing single-player, the game needs to be able to both simulate and emulate the world, which take many more CPU cycles. We're working on optimizing rendering, but those improvements will not be included until Minecraft 1.4.

Minecraft 1.3: The Ugly A couple of problems and expected features have been pushed to Minecraft 1.4. The most notable problem is the lighting issues causing black regions in the terrain. We're looking into ways to solve this, but lighting is a very expensive calculation and we are struggling with finding a solution that doesn't hurt framerate.

And the most notable missing feature is the modding API. Throwing out single-player was the first step in order to make the API possible, and that's done now. We decided to release 1.3 without the API, because otherwise it would be an even longer wait for a Minecraft update.

We've also added an extremely basic version of "adventure mode." We'll work more on this in future updates. As you can see, while update 1.3 for Minecraft brings quite a lot of interesting things, it changes the game in some fundamental ways.

Are you looking forward to these modifications on August 1, when the patch goes live?