by Stone Marshall | Sep 30, 2015 | Minecraft News |
Latest reports indicate that Minecraft is getting revolutionized from a 2D world to a 3 dimensional feel, thanks to the Oculus Rift Virtual Reality headset. In case you are a Minecraft fan, you are already aware that very soon, you can play Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition by making use of the Virtual Reality Headset.
However, The Verge revealed that gamers will not be able to use the Virtual Reality Headset in Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition until sometime in 2016. This is the second time that the developers have connected a Virtual Reality Headset to their game and then made it work.
This was done for the first time in 2015 June, during the E3 Expo. At that time, the Minecraft developers connected Microsoft’s HoloLens virtual reality headset to the game and then experienced it in 3D.
From the looks of it, Minecraft developers are planning to bring Virtual Reality to Minecraft through more than just a specific VR device. Meanwhile, Sony is also progressing with PlayStation VR technology and therefore, PlayStation Gamers can play Minecraft in 3D on PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation 4.
In the meantime, the Microsoft gamers who played the game on PS Vita, PS3 and PS4 have already received the Doctor Who DLC. This new DLC comes with 100 new skins from the Doctor Who series and people and a lot of fans will definitely wish to buy them. Furthermore, the Minecraft: PlayStation 3 version received an additional 23 trophies.
Recently, Username BruceKnowsHow, an YouTuber managed to make Minecraft rides 100% more interesting by modding in a few graphical shaders and transforming the game into an exciting dream journey. The experience is quite psychedelic even without the use of any VR headset or watching it in 360 degrees.
BruceKnowsHow declared that the video was a complete nightmare and he spent a long time on it than he did on the original. According to him, it was all supposed to take seven nights to record but in the end, it turned out to be a month.
At the same time, recording the omnidirectional files was quite unreliable and needed multiple workarounds that he didn’t know about at the outset. He further messed up with the fact that he didn’t check if a recording was in sync and later ended up wasting 100 hours on bad recordings. He further added that the torch beats were done from scratch.
Meanwhile, thanks to Telltale Games, the massively popular multiplayer game, Minecraft is getting a proper story for the first time. Job J. Stauffer of Telltale spoke with spoke with Todd Kenreck, a Forbes contributor, regarding the challenges of bringing a story to the Minecraft Universe and further adding crafting to the Telltale-style game.
The Story Mode’s first chapter for Minecraft is supposed to release on 13th October on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, PC, Mac and PlayStation 4. Meanwhile, it will release on 13th October for Android, Amazon Fire TV and other iOS Devices.
We all know that Minecraft is one of the most played games in the world, be it the console or the PC version. This is one of those games, not unlike Clash of Clans, that is popular among both adults and children of today. In other words, Minecraft is a game that one can play with their kids and have a great time while at it.
You and your kids will need to make weapons and buildings in Minecraft while getting ready for the dreaded night when Evil creatures wake up and try to harm you. In case you don’t feel like playing the survival mode, you can play the Creator Mode instead, where you need to build a complete city if you wanted to.
At the moment, we are going to talk about the version 1.20 Minecraft update which was released for PlayStation 3, PS Vita and PlayStation 4 consoles. Presently, the patch is only available in North America and Europe but Japan will follow suit later on.
There were some problems earlier, like the memory leak issue which further caused frame-rate problems in Minecraft. Besides fixes, the new Minecraft update also comes with the Doctor Who Skin pack. We have already talked about it and it is clear that it’s nothing short exciting.
These are the new additions with the Minecraft Update Version 1.20:-
- Doctor Who Skin Pack Bundle Trial Content with 100 exciting new skins from Doctor Who.
- Memory leak issue causing FPS problems have been fixed.
- There was an issue which causing signs to go blank for the network players and they have been fixed.
- The trophies have now been updated and this includes all those which are already available on all other platforms. These are 23 new ones added to PS3 only.
Meanwhile, Developers of the console version of Minecraft, 4J Studios is presently working on a few other minor updates before finally getting the 1.8 version. If you wish to purchase the Doctor Who Bundle Skin Pack, you can acquire it from PlayStation Store for a price of 5.99 dollars.
Stay tuned for more updates on Minecraft!
Minecraft 1.20 Update Released Along With Doctor Who Skin Pack, Oculus Rift Support To Be Added In 2016
by Stone Marshall | Sep 30, 2015 | Minecraft News |
Available now in Europe, with North America and Japan getting it later today (Update: It’s out now in North America), Minecraft update 1.20 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita adds support for the new Doctor Who Skin Pack, while also fixing a couple of issues, including a memory leak that caused frame-rate problems.
Here’s the full list of patch notes for today’s update, which apply to all platforms unless otherwise noted:
Additions
- Added Doctor Who Skin Pack Bundle trial content.
Fixes
- Fixed a memory leak causing frame-rate issues.
- Fixed an issue causing signs to go blank for network players.
- Updated trophies to include all those already on other platforms. 23 added in total. (PS3 only)
Discussing the future of big Minecraft updates on consoles, developer 4J Studios said earlier this month:
No news yet, other than we’re working on it. The next few updates will be small, while we get the 1.8 update ready.
If you’re looking to purchase the Doctor Who Bundle, it’s available through the PlayStation Store for $5.99 (PS4, PS3, PS Vita).
Here’s the description:
Launch yourself on an epic adventure in space and time with this bundle of Minecraft Doctor Who Skins Volume I and Volume II. With the combination of these two skin packs you will have over 100 characters from all eras of the show’s history including all the Doctors, Amy Pond, Clara Oswald, Rose Tyler, Zygons, The Master, Weeping Angels, the Daleks, Davros, Donna Noble, Captain Jack Harkness, K9, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, the Sea Devil and the Cybermen.
You can check out some screenshots in the gallery below.
As Telltale Games and Mojang announced recently, Minecraft: Story Mode is coming to PS4 and PS3 this October through digital and retail stores.
Minecraft Update 1.20 Today on PS4, PS3 & PS Vita Adds Doctor Who Skin Pack, Fixes Frame-Rate Issues
by Stone Marshall | Sep 29, 2015 | Minecraft News |
Minecraft is one of the most played games out there, whether we’re talking about the PC version or the console version. It is one of those games where both kids and mature people can have fun while playing it. With other words, Minecraft is one of those games that you can play with your kids and have a great time.
In Minecraft, you and your kids will need to craft weapons, create buildings and get ready for the night when “evil” creatures wake up and will try to harm you. If you don’t want to play the survival mode, you can also play the creative mode, where you will have to use your creativity and build an entire city (if you want to).
However, today we’re going to talk about the new Minecraft update version 1.20 which was released for PS3, PS4 and PS Vita consoles. This patch is currently available only in the Northern America and Europe, but Japan will follow later today.
The new Minecraft update comes with Doctor Who Skin pack, but also includes some fixes such as the memory leak which was causing the FPS (frame rate per second) problems.
Minecraft Update version 1.20: What’s New?
– Doctor Who Skin Pack Bundle Trial Content;
– The memory leak that was causing the FPS issues has been fixed;
– An issue that was causing signs to go blank for the network players has been fixed;
– The trophies have been updated and now include all those that are already on other platforms (23 new trophies have been added) (PS3 only).
4J Studios, the developers of the console version of Minecraft, said that they are currently working on some other small updates before they get the 1.8 version.
If you want to purchase the Doctor Who Bundle skin pack, you will be able to buy it from the PlayStation store for 5.99 dollars.
Minecraft 1.20 Update Released for PS3, PS4 and PS Vita – A New Skin Pack And Top Features
by Stone Marshall | Sep 29, 2015 | Minecraft News |
Everything Parents Need to Know About Minecraft (as Told by Kids)
by Stone Marshall | Sep 28, 2015 | Minecraft News |
The massively popular game Minecraft is getting a story for the very first time, thanks to Telltale Games. Telltale’s Job J. Stauffer speaks with Forbes contributor Todd Kenreck on the challenges of bringing story to the Minecraft universe and adding crafting to a Telltale-style game. Minecraft: Story Mode’s first chapter is due out October 13th on Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PC, Mac and on October 13th for iOS Devices, Android and Amazon Fire TV.
‘Minecraft: Story Mode’ Is Building A Plot From Scratch
by Stone Marshall | Sep 28, 2015 | Minecraft News |
Oculus VR chief technology officer John Carmack was desperate to get the block-building open-world game Minecraft into virtual reality, but it took a lot of effort and a meeting between two of the most powerful people in tech to make that happen.
At the Oculus Connect developer conference in Hollywood today, Carmack explained that, for him, VR gaming is all about exploring worlds. He explained that cresting a hill to see a beautiful vista “means something” when you’re in a head-mounted display, and he could think of no better game to bring that kind of experience alive than Mojang’s exploration-heavy phenomenon. So he got to work convincing Mojang and, eventually, Microsoft to let him make that happen — but he needed the power of Mark Zuckerberg to finally seal the deal.
“Minecraft was my quest, really, for the last year and a half,” Carmack said. “Before Gear VR even existed, Minecraft was something I was desperate to get into virtual reality because I thought it would be critically important.”
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Carmack explained that while Minecraft is a game about exploring, it also has a number of other aspects that make it ideal for VR. It’s a metaverse with an infinite number of worlds where people can put on different skins to play as different characters. And it was with that stuff in mind that Oculus invited Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson into the office to talk about putting a version of the game into the Rift.
“We had Notch over,” said Carmack. “And we showed him early prototype stuff, and I talked with him about geeky programmer stuff for a long time. We were trying to get into a situation where he would let us try to put the [mobile] game on Gear VR — if it’s great, then we’ll see where we can go from there.”
But that didn’t work out right away. You might remember that when Facebook acquired Oculus in July 2014, Notch “blew up about it,” as Carmack puts it. Notch referred to the social media company as “creepy” and publicly stated that it wasn’t the partner he was envisioning when he backed the original Oculus Rift when it was just a Kickstarter project.
“Notch eventually got over that, and then there was the Microsoft acquisition,” said Carmack. “I started pestering Mojang about it. I would drive home this case that ‘we don’t want to ask anything from you. Just let me try to build this, and if you think it’s cool, then we’ll figure it out from there.’”
Carmack said he was so confident that Minecraft would work that he would agree to just about anything with Microsoft — and that seemed to do the trick.
“Microsoft actually got me GitHub access to the Minecraft: Pocket Edition code base,” he said. “But we signed a contract that our lawyers said was terrible. ‘They own everything you do. John, you’re basically working for Microsoft when you’re working on this.’”
But the CTO assured Facebook and Oculus’s legal team that this was worth it, and he got to work. Now, it’s up to him to get it up and running. He says he’s already given the framerate a boost and implemented head-tracking, which are the “fundamentals of VR.” But he’s also considering all kinds of other technical improvements — although, he notes that a lot of that stuff isn’t critical.
“It was amazing how quickly I was thinking to myself that I’m in the game and having fun,” he said. “I’ve played more hours of Minecraft in [Samsung’s] Gear VR than all other games put together. I still want to fix everything — I’ve talked to Mojang’s engineers about it. But it turns out that I wouldn’t say they are at all necessary for an initial release because I had an immense amount of fun with it.”
But despite all of that, Minecraft almost didn’t end up on the Oculus stage today. It took a last-minute emergency meeting to make that happen.
“I guess I can say this now. I got the email at 12:30 a.m. this morning that the deal was signed,” said Carmack. “We did all this preparation about how to announce it with the assumption that we would get to, but it really came down to the wire.”
Carmack said that after he did the initial work on Minecraft for VR about eight months ago, Oculus and Facebook spent the rest of the time trying to reach a deal with Mojang.
“I was willing to do just about anything,” he said. “On the phone I said that if this doesn’t happen, I’m going to cry. This will just be so terrible. This will be the best thing that we can do for the platform. But there are some problems that compilers can’t solve.”
It turns out that the solution was to get the top executives from Facebook and Microsoft together.
“Mark [Zuckerberg] and Satya [Nadella] were able to sit down and make sure that the deal happened,” said Carmack.
“I’ve called this my grail,” he continued. “I think it’s the single most important application that we can have to ensure we have an army of fanatic, passionate supporters that will advocate why VR is great. It’s part of this infinite playability that our current ecosystem is missing.”
How John Carmack pestered Microsoft to let him make Minecraft for Gear VR
