What is best in life? If you answered "griefing your co-workers with a violin simulation app," then you just might work at Mojang. Last we heard, the indie developers that brought you Minecraft were getting settled into their new office. Now that they're comfortable, they've got more intimate details they'd like to share with you this week. That's right—intimate, as in the YouTube videos they love and the iPad apps they loathe.
Here's Mojang's Jakob Porser:
Hello again readers of the Internets! Another two weeks has passed, and the time has come for yet another update of the Mojang Dev Diary. Like always, I have a collection of news and information tidbits about daily life at the Mojang office here in Stockholm.
In this post, I will be addressing our upcoming trip to GDC, the state of Minecraft, give a crash course about office griefing and talk about @notch's whereabouts. So strap yourself to your saddle and let the reading commence!
Where is @notch?
Good question. Right now (9:14 a.m. on a Tuesday) he's in Mexico, where he is celebrating his mother's 60th birthday and texting me about how wonderful everything is. Oh, how I enjoy reading those little messages ever so much as I battle the Swedish winter on my way to work. Thanks Notch.
His vacation is coming to an end though, and just as we were preparing a warm welcome for him, we got a very interesting call from the good people at Machinima. It would appear that the Minecrafters' invasion of YouTube has not gone unnoticed, and Machinima and YouTube want to team up and do a live stream broadcast featuring Notch and SeaNanners as they play our favorite game, Minecraft, with a selection of community people. Check out our Facebook page for more information regarding this event. I have a feeling it's something you do NOT want to miss.
Minecraft: whats in the pipeline?
Whenever I ask the community what they would like to read about, the topic gets the highest amount of votes (tune in to my twitter at www.twitter.com/JahKob to make your voice heard). As always, your wish is my command, so here's some info about the next release:
- Wooden and cobble stone half blocks to add some more options for your designs.
- New save file format. With the new format, loading is now seven times faster. On top of that, the number of files for each saved world is drastically decreased. This new format will not destroy your current saves, as they will be converted the first time they are loaded.
- New Minecraft launcher. This is a great communication tool for us as we will be able to give you guys important information directly in the launcher.
- Various bug fixes!
- New block! This is a sweet one for you red stone junkies. A block that acts as a signal carrier, much like red stone. But on top of that, it also acts as a repeater AND a programmable delayer.
- Secret update! Oh, yes. There will be that as well.
Personally, I'm most excited about the new carrier/repeater/delayer block. Every time we release an item like this, we are blown away by what you guy make with them. The release of the music block was pure joy in that way. The whole office gathered around a computer and marveled at the creations uploaded to YouTube. If some you missed out on them, here are some top picks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuWW9bEfzvs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIkLBHf5S8w
Those are just a couple. Search on Youtube and you'll see what I mean. Anyways, great job guys! Keep it up!
Mojang goes to GDC!
GDC is only 20 days away, and @carlmanneh and @kappische are hard at work, planning our time there and setting up meetings. Of course, we want to represent Minecraft as best as we can at this event, so we came up with an idea that we'd like to share with you guys. We have ordered 100 box-heads that we want to distribute to fans visiting the event. All you have to do in order to get one is to show up wearing a blue t-shirt and it is yours!
Office griefing is out of control!
We all know a Nerf dart to the back of the head can cause substantial nerd-rage if timed correctly. But it is NOTHING compared to the latest griefing element that's made its way to the office. I am of course talking about the iPad app "Magic Fiddle." The app is some sort of unholy mix of Guitar-Hero-like gameplay, classical music and fiddles. It's like someone left a thousand lovesick cats at our doorstep and we, for whatever reason, decided to shelter them. I'd estimate that this app has single-handedly caused more break-ups then all other computer games combined. @mollstam seems particularly bad at Magic Fiddle, and he lets us know just how bad he is on a regular basis. This app must go!
That's all I've got right now. As always, you can write to us at pcgamerblog@mojang.com if you have any requests, and as always, hook up with our twitter for regular information updates and ongoing silliness.
Jakob Porser
Game Developer, Mojang
Be sure to follow the Mojang developers on Twitter:
Markus Persson, Game Developer
Daniel Kaplan, Business Developer
Jens Bergensten, Game Developer
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