Minecraft developer Mojang has temporarily suspended its services after an exploit was discovered in the software used by Amazon's load balancing service. The company cannot guarantee whether or not information was compromised and recommends changing your Mojang/Minecraft passwords.
With over half a million lines of code changed, 1,100+ commits and 80+ bugs fixed, Mojang is releasing one of the biggest Minecraft updates in recent memory with Update 1.7. With a slew of interesting changes and overall improvements, this could bring back a few players who abandoned their worlds long ago. Here’s a summary of what you can expect starting Friday:
If one thing has been proven time and time again, it's that Minecraft fans are some of the most fanatical members in the online community. Case in point, a user named Rumsey on Minecraftforum.net has posted a screenshot gallery of his pet project: an entire scale replica of World of Warcraft.
Now, at first glance, my jaw hit the floor over the ridiculous detail and amount of time I thought a project like this would take, but as it turns out Rumsey is actually developing software and using it to build this customized world. Once he is satisfied with the results, he expects for it to be hosted online.
Mojang's Notch has posted a poll to his blog asking the community if they mind the idea of the developer tracking anonymous and non-private data about the game from its players. This data would include things such as current game mode (single player/multiplayer), operating system (Windows/Mac), how long you've been playing a game session, or whether or not you play the game via client or the webpage counterpart.
Notch does want to ensure that all the data sent will be "fully anonymous" and it wouldn't contain any session information or username data. It is also information that would be shared with the community, "as usual." To voice your opinion on the poll for or against collecting anonymous data, be sure to check out Notch's blog.
Mojang's Notch sent out a tweet over the weekend stating that "Minecraft now has 20 million registered users. At 70 kg each, that's 25% of the weight of the Great Pyramid of Giza."
It's definetly an interesting way to put this 20 million milestone in context, but no matter how you say it, it's great to see such an amazing game hitting these numbers.
Minecraft - Pocket Edition was one of the most requested mobile titles for good amount of time. But when it finally hit the mobile market it was hardly what the community wanted. However, designer Daniel Kaplan has broken the silence on Mojang's blog to deliver the news that we can soon expect Survival Mode in Minecraft - Pocket Edition.
In his blog he apologizes for the delay in updates and explains that the intial code wouldn't support survival mode and thus had to be completely redone. He's announced that the update will be submitted to both Android Market and iOS App Store by February 8th.
For all the details on what's coming in the update be sure to check out Mojang's blog.
MineCon was held this past weekend in Las Vegas with all the Notch and Mojang you can shake a pick at! ZAM's newest Staff Writer Mike aka Krelumian was in attendence, and he got a chance to see all the gaming goodness Mojang had to offer.
With Minecraft on showcase for the Xbox 360, and playable versions of Scrolls and Cobalt, there was plenty of ground to cover. Let's get on with it!
Minecraft: Pocket Edition will be hitting the App Store one day before MineCon! The app is listed on the New Zealand iTunes store for $9.99, which will be roughly $6.99 in the United States.
The gameplay is limited to Creative Mode, which means there will be no Survival Mode, but features 36 different blocks for building in randomized worlds. Once more, players can invite friends to visit their hand crafted world via local Wi-Fi, and multiplayer worlds can be saved to your device.
The game will be compatible with any device running iOS 4.3 or higher.
The second annual Game Developers Choice Online Awards ceremony was held last night at GDC Online, and both Rift and Minecraft took home the top honors with two awards each. Rift earned awards for Best New Online Game and Best Online Technology, while Minecraft received the Best Live Game and Best Community Relations awards. Wizard101 pick up the Audience Award, which is voted on by gamers worldwide.
It's also important to note that EverQuest was inducted into the Choice Online Awards Hall of Fame. The classic MMO is in its 12th year of operation and has a new expansion scheduled to launch next month. Last year's inductee was Ultima Online.
You can view the full list of winners after the jump.
