The highly pixelated world of “Minecraft” has been a global hit among kids and adults alike and had mashed up with other game franchises over the years. This Holiday season will be no different as the five-year-old game will be crossing paths with an equally famed title – Bethesda’s “Fallout.”
The new downloadable content has been revealed to fans about a week ago and has gone live since yesterday. Just like the previous penchant, the new game segment has brought in loads of new skins and items taken from the “Fallout” universe, Gamespot learned. Some of the new skins include the likes of “Fallout’s” renowned mascot, Vault Boy, Nick Valentine, Jangles the moon monkey, Paladin Cross, robo-sleuth, Tinker Tom, and even the super-powered mutant, Fawkes.
Nuked landmarks in the “Fallout” lore has also graced the game which include the Tenpenny Tower and the Capitol building. These well-known beacons won’t be complete without it being infested with oversized web crawlers, two-headed bovine mutations, gruesome-looking anomalies, and slender ghouls.
Making the “Minecraft-Fallout” experience complete is the playlist that went along the newly released game expansion. The soundtrack has stashed in popular tunes in recent and previous “Fallout” titles that will make sandbox gameplay all worthwhile during the Holidays.
The new DLC comes with a price tag of $6 and is now available on all major gaming platforms including legacy consoles such as Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3.
PC players, on the other hand, will not be left out as Minecraft’s website also released the 1.11.1 patch that brought forth some nifty stuff within the game. Such items include a rocket equipped elytra glider, a so-called “sweeping edge” enchantment for bladed weapons, iron nuggets, and a tweak in the game’s attack indicator where players are now being signaled on when to strike.
Is Minecraft the Most Available game ever? It seems like it’s out on pretty much every major platform going, and this week added yet another: Apple TV. Minecraft: Apple TV Edition costs $19.99, and comes bundled with a number of DLC packs, including the Holiday 2015, Town Folk, and City Folk skin packs, and the Plastic, Natural, Cartoon, and Festive 2016 mash-ups. However, it is missing two biggish features: Microsoft Realms and Xbox Live support. Developer Mojang says these will be coming “in the near future.”
And, Minecraft: Apple TV Edition will also come with the Ender Update, released at the same time for the Pocket and Windows 10 versions of the game. This update adds a chunk of single player gameplay to Minecraft in the form of an alternate dimension (the End), populated by various baddies and items (e.g., Ender Crystals and Ender Pearls), as well as the Ender Dragon itself.
In the new update for the “Minecraft” game, update 1.10 is considered the holiday update. This update introduces wings to the console versions of the game, as well as new mobs as well as new features for The End dimension.
“Minecraft” developer Mojang released a “Fallout” crossover DLC pack, which made the console versions of the game transform into a wasteland, according to Game Rant. The pack is mostly for cosmetic purposes, as it only adds a few new characters as well as character skins. However, the new update promises that this time, it is more practical and free for everyone.
The new update adds a whole new range of features to the “Minecraft” console versions. Update 1.10 gives significant changes to The End dimension’s landscape with the addition of End Cities and End ships. The former is basically made out of end stone bricks as well as purpur blocks, which can be composed of just a single tower. The latter are simply pirate-ship like vessels, as described by the players who played the PC and Mac versions of the game.
Also, “Minecraft” update 1.10 gives players several new items that help make the game even more interesting. This includes Dragon’s Breath, Water Splash Potion, Tipped Arrow, and Elytra. The last one on the list cannot be crafted, but are only found in End Cities and can be worn as a chestplate that allows players flight.
However, the Elytra only allows players to glide from high ledges until they reach the ground, according to Game Spot. The rate of descent can be controlled by looking up or down, but if the player looks up for prolonged periods of time, they will stall. Otherwise, they gain a small amount of height.
“Minecraft” is available on the PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. The game is available for both Android and iOS mobile devices.
If you’re starting to lose track of the numerous versions of Minecraft, you’re not the only one. Just before Christmas, Mojang released the popular sandbox game onto yet another platform with Minecraft: Apple TV Edition. What does the launch of an Apple TV game mean for Xbox gamers? Normally, nothing. However, like the iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, Gear VR and Windows 10 editions, this one is confirmed to be receiving Xbox Live support, meaning a new list of achievements.
While the Xbox Live support hasn’t gone live yet, Mojang says they’ll be adding it “in the near future.” This latest edition will also soon be receiving the Realms update, which added subscription-based, always-on worlds. Despite not having all the latest features just yet, the Apple TV Edition is still fairly current, launching with this month’s Ender update, which also recently went out to the various Pocket editions of Minecraft. For those who happen to own an Apple TV, it’s currently going for US$19.99and offering the Holiday 2015, Town Folk, and City Folk skin packs as well as the Plastic, Natural, Cartoon, and Festive 2016 DLC mash-ups free with purchase for a limited time.
“Microsoft Monday” takes a look back at the past week of news related to Microsoft. This week, “Microsoft Monday” includes details about Minecraft arriving on Apple TV, Dolby Atmos support coming to the Xbox One and Windows 10, the download speed increasing on the Xbox One, a roadmap for Cortana on IoT devices, the OneDrive for iOS update and much more!
Minecraft Arrives On Apple TV For $19.99
Minecraft / Image Credit: Microsoft
Back in October, Mojang announced that Minecraft will be coming to the Apple TV. And today Minecraft has officially arrived for the fourth-generation Apple TV at a price of $19.99.
“We’ve just released Minecraft for the slim black boxes. And, for a limited time, it comes with seven pieces of lovely DLC, giving you the chance to customize the fun to your liking. Minecraft: Apple TV Edition currently includes the Holiday 2015, Town Folk, and City Folk skin packs, along with the Plastic, Natural, Cartoon, and Festive 2016 mash-ups,” said Mojang’s director of creative communications Owen Jones in a blog post.
Minecraft for the Apple TV will also support the Ender Update. Unfortunately, it does not support Minecraft Realms or Xbox Live yet. But Mojang plans to add support for those platforms “in the near future.”
Dolby Atmos Sound Is Coming To Xbox One And Windows 10
Microsoft has announced that the Dolby Atmos surround sound technology will be coming to Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs and tablets. What makes this announcement exciting is that Dolby Atmos is known for making gaming and video content sound extremely sharp and
“Xbox will be the first game console to feature Dolby Atmos and game developers are excited about using the new capabilities to make their games richer and more engaging. Atmos support for the Blu-ray app on Xbox is already available in Preview and will be released to GA soon – and we’re very excited now to offer Atmos support to games on Xbox One and Windows 10,” said Spencer Hooks, the Director of Gaming at Dolby Laboratories. “You’ll be able to experience Dolby Atmos in your home theater, assuming you have a Dolby Atmos enabled speaker system or soundbar. But you don’t need to have that kind of equipment – it will be possible to enable virtually any pair of headphones with the Dolby Atmos experience.”
Xbox Preview members can now access Dolby Atmos support on the Xbox One and Xbox One S through Blu-ray Bitstream pass-through. If you are an Xbox Preview member, you can set up the feature by making sure you have the latest Blu-ray player update under the “Updates” tab within the “My Games & Apps” section and then enabling “Let my receiver decode audio (beta)” under the “Disc & Blu-ray” settings page.
Xbox One Update Increases Download Speeds Up To 80%
In a recent Xbox One update, Microsoft substantially optimized the download speeds supported by the console. If you are on an Internet connection that is faster than 100Mbps, then you should see an increase of about 80%. On slower connections, game and app downloads should still see a boost of around 40%. The changes in the download speed depend on your ISP and connection configuration. But the download speeds won’t have as much of a boost if you are playing a game since the bandwidth is prioritized for that experience. The Xbox One update also includes optimizations to make downloads “more resilient to intermittent connectivity issues.” And the update contains performance improvements for wireless controllers and background music.
The Xbox One update includes optimizations to make downloads “more resilient to intermittent connectivity issues.” And the update includes performance improvements for wireless controllers and background music.
Microsoft Is Reportedly Expanding Cortana To Internet Of Things Devices
ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley noticed that Cortana will be coming to Windows 10 Internet of Things Core devices with displays, according to a slide presented at the WinHEC 2016 event in Shenzhen. The slide showed Cortana built into a refrigerator, a thermostat and a toaster.
“With upcoming Windows 10 Creators Update, Cortana will be available on Windows 10 IoT Core devices with displays,” says the slide. Windows 10 Creators Update is expected to arrive in March 2017. In the Windows 10 Creators Update, Microsoft is also adding “wake on voice from modern standby” and “far-field voice” with Cortana. This will enable hardware companies to build devices that can wake up Cortana with voice queries and it will be able to listen to people from different rooms.
Foley said that the Cortana on Windows 10 IoT Core will launch in English for the U.S. and U.K. markets first. And there are plans to roll it out in additional languages after that.
OneDrive For iOS Has Been Updated With Office Lens Feature And Instant Previews
OneDrive for iOS / Photo Credit: Microsoft
Last week, Microsoft released a OneDrive for iOS update with a few new features. Microsoft OneDrive for iOS now has the ability to preview Word, Excel and PowerPoint files within the app via the new instant previewers. Another new feature is the ability to digitize whiteboards, documents and business cards because the app now has Office Lens integration.
Microsoft Is Adding Click-To-Load Flash As The Default In Edge Browser
Tweet by Kyle Pflug / Screenshot Credit: Amit Chowdhry
Kyle Pflug, the communications manager of the Microsoft Edge browser, tweeted that click-to-load Flash will be added as the default for the Edge browser. Edge users will be able to test this feature in the next Insider flight. This feature will eventually be integrated into the main version of Edge after beta testers and developers work out some of the kinks.
Example of Adobe Flash content being blocked / Photo Credit: Microsoft
The Edge browser should default to HTML5 content if it is available. And the option to click-to-load Flash will appear on a site-by-site basis, according to PCWorld.
“We are deeply aware that Flash is an integral part of many web experiences today. To ease the transition to HTML5, these changes initially will not affect the most popular sites which rely on Flash today. In the coming months, we will actively monitor Flash consumption in Microsoft Edge and will gradually shorten the list of automatic exceptions. At the end of this process, users will remain in control, and will be able to choose Flash for any site they visit,” said Microsoft in a blog post.
To Improve Digital Assistants, Microsoft Launches An AI Data Set Called MS MARCO
Last week, Microsoft released a data set called Microsoft MAchine Reading COmprehension (MS MARCO) containing 100,000 questions and answers that artificial intelligence researchers can utilize for building applications that are able to read and answer queries just like a human. The data collected for MS MARCO is based on anonymized real world data from the Bing search engine and the Cortana digital assistant.
“In order to move towards artificial general intelligence, we need to take a step towards being able to read a document and understand it as well as a person,” said Microsoft’s Rangan Majumder in a blog post. “This is a step in that direction.”
Digital assistants do an excellent job when it comes to handling math problems and basic knowledge queries. However, digital assistants tend to point to search engine results when asked ambiguous questions. To make digital assistants smarter, researchers need stronger sources of “training data.”
Microsoft, TomTom, HERE And Esri Are Building “World Graphs” For Sharing Geographic Data
At the Microsoft Technology Center in Detroit, Microsoft announced that it has partnered with TomTom, HERE and Esri to integrate location-based services into the Microsoft Azure cloud. Having access to the location-based data will make it easier for developers to build sophisticated mobile, enterprise, and Internet of Things apps.
“Through our partnership with Microsoft, we can bring all our map layers to the Microsoft Azure ecosystem and foster innovation that makes people’s lives better,” said Pieter Gillegot-Vergauwen, the VP of product management and maps at TomTom at the event. “We’re working actively to lead the way to a future of smart mobility, smarter cities and autonomous driving.”
Microsoft’s partnership with HERE has been extended so that the Redmond giant can expand upon its use of HERE data and services in cars. HERE powers the location data in Microsoft’s first party services like Windows, Cortana and Bing.
And Esri’s ArcGIS platform runs on Azure and can pull in location-based data such as weather, live sensor data and social media feeds. Last month, Microsoft announced the first preview of ArcGIS Maps for Power BI, which offers rich mapping visualizations.
Spokesperson Frank X. Shaw Says Microsoft Opposes Discrimination And Would Not Work On Building A Muslim American Registry
Earlier this month, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and a number of other technology executives met with President-elect Donald Trump to discuss a number of issues including jobs and trades. During Trump’s campaign, he said that one of his initiatives was to build a database of Syrian refugees so BuzzFeed News reached out to Microsoft and other technology companies for clarification on their positions.
“We’ve been clear about our values. We oppose discrimination and we wouldn’t do any work to build a registry of Muslim Americans,” said Microsoft spokesperson Frank X. Shaw to BuzzFeed News. Shaw released the statement one day after the meeting took place between Trump and the tech executives. And over 40 Microsoft employees signed a pledge that says they refuse to build a database based on the Constitutionally-protected religious beliefs of Muslim Americans.
How Bill Gates Was A Generous Secret Santa On Reddit
For most of its life, Mojang has allowed private Minecraft servers to exist with few, if any, caveats. The largest servers, like Hypixel and Mineplex, have player bases rivaling those of full independent games, as well as enough staff to create experiences that can be almost unrecognizable as Minecraft. But in June of 2014, Mojang started cracking down on private servers and limiting what made them unique.
While Mojang/Microsoft are well within their rights to protect their brand and enforce their EULA, the changes have damaged the community, perhaps irreparably. Even though the largest networks remain operational, a lot of servers have shut down, and enforcement efforts are contributing to a narrativeofdecline. While reports of Minecraft’s death are undoubtedly exaggerated—sales are as strong as ever—we may be seeing the death of a certain type of Minecraft.
Cops n’ Crims on Hypixel
The Dawn of Independent Servers
Part of the reason for the popularity of private servers is the inadequate nature of official offerings from Mojang. Their multiplayer platform, Realms, has been fairly limited until very recently. It has yet to catch on in the way that private servers have, given how easy they are to set up, modify, and maintain.
That’s only one part of their popularity, though. In many ways, Mojang offloaded the responsibility of community management and development to independent actors. Private servers have worked hard to foster and maintain the community that made Minecraft such a phenomenon. Without the maps, mods, and spaces provided by servers like Hypixel—features that form the basis of the most popular YouTube channels— Minecraft most likely wouldn’t be as popular as it is today.
The largest of these servers provide a home for a competitive player base that prefers fast-paced PvP to Minecraft’s more idyllic survival mode, with the most popular modes such as Walls, Skyblock, and Factions being a combination of combat and building. Many players also enjoy more insular building and design-focused servers like Revand and Minecraft Middle Earth, and more still play on small private servers shared with a select whitelisted group focused on survival or exploration.
The exact number of players who experience Minecraft primarily or exclusively through private servers is difficult to quantify, but it’s significant—Hypixel alone boasts 10 million unique accounts. However, it’s easy to see the influence that these servers have had on the development of the game and the community. Most of the minigames that are now popular among Minecraft’s devotees were developed and popularized on large servers like Mineplex or Shotbow. Many of these, like Battle and Tumble, have received official treatment in Minecraft’s console versions.
Of course, just because private servers are free to create and run doesn’t mean that it’s cheap or easy to do so. Most servers don’t make their costs public, but a quick look at the monthly expenses of a fairly modest server like Minecraft Middle Earth shows that they can cost in the thousands of dollars. For many owners, running a private server is a full-time job. Some of the larger servers employ a full staff of developers, artists, and managers.
To pay for the cost of hosting and staffing private servers, a secondary market has emerged. It sells everything from cosmetic upgrades to in-game items. Some of these microtransactions are fairly innocuous, though a certain class of server quickly developed a reputation for charging exorbitant amounts of money for titles or ranks that often preyed on minors.
For a while, the largest private servers enjoyed a cordial relationship with Mojang. They had implicit or explicit permission to charge for services and use Mojang assets. In the early days of Minecon, their staffs were even invited to give talks or host panels like “Modding With the Pros” or “Growing a Server Community.” Over time, this relationship weakened, like “distant high-school friends,” as Navarr Barnier of Shotbow termed it.
The Shotbow Team at Minecon
The Crackdown Begins
Then, in June of 2014, just before the Microsoft buyout, Mojang dropped a bombshell on the community.
A blog post titled “Let’s talk server monetization” seemed innocuous enough, but it threatened to shatter the stability of the entire private server ecosystem. The blog post was essentially a clarification of the Minecraft End User License Agreement (EULA), but it made many common server practices, like allowing players to buy in-game currency, explicitly against the rules. There was a lot of disagreement about what exactly this meant, but the general consensus was that Mojang was within its rights to enforce these rules, which would cut down on the worst predatory and exploitative practices.
For some servers, the changes ended up being beneficial. For years they had operated without any guarantee that they would be allowed to continue or what exactly was allowed. The changes granted them an air of legitimacy and moved them out of the “greyzone,” as Aaron Donaghey, Operations Manager at Hypixel, termed it. “It allowed us to make a one year plan,” he said, “where previously things were month-to-month.” Without the looming threat of a shutdown, Hypixel and other legitimate servers could run their servers more like real businesses, hiring staff and expanding.
But for others, the future was less clear. The blog post wasn’t followed by any especially vigorous enforcement efforts, so most servers simply continued as they were, but the writing was on the wall.
Starting about nine months ago, Mojang hired several ‘brand enforcers’ who started cracking down on EULA violations. These enforcers sent e-mails to non-compliant servers and eventually created a blacklist of the worst offenders. Some servers that were previously in good standing were caught up in the purge. Hypixel had done away with all of its EULA-violating practices when the announcement was made, but it received a strongly-worded enforcement letter telling it to remove the horses it provided as rewards to donating players, even though those horses were purely for use in the lobby and provided no gameplay benefit.
Despite having an existing agreement with Mojang and an understanding that their server was in compliance, the Shotbow network recently received an uncompromising message from the Microsoft enforcement team telling them to remove their soft currency, Shotbow XP, or be blacklisted.
“We asked about our agreement with Carl [Manneh, previously of Mojang] and were told in no uncertain words that regardless of any previous communication and agreements we had to abide by these terms or be blacklisted,” said Barnier. “It was actually quite frightening: at this point we’d spent over four years on our games, and it was quickly set in stone that we could be finished on a whim.”
Even servers with large numbers of players have struggled to stay afloat after the changes. High-profile servers like Overcast Network, which was bought out by Pocket Edition mega-network Lifeboat, or Mineplex, once dominant but now plagued with rumors of player and server decline, have struggled. Some servers have even turned to extreme measures, distributing cracked launchers or running bootleg versions of Minecraft to avoid being targeted. Others have simply decided not to update and continue running increasingly outdated versions of Minecraft rather than try to meet Microsoft’s expectations. But for other servers, regardless of their legal standing, switching their funding models would mean shutting down entirely.
Though Mojang has made attempts to work with their community, their enforcement of the EULA has been inconsistent and unevenly applied. Some servers have received harsh punishments, while others have been ignored. Some large, healthy servers have had to scale back or close down, but many servers with paid ranks and items continue to operate, apparently without consequence. “The door for dialogue is opening,” Donaghey admits, referring to recent communication efforts by Microsoft, but the damage may already be done.
An Uncertain Future
“Where once you had a free market (and, to be fair, a more mature user base) you now have a walled garden with very strict limitations on how you can maneuver,” says Barnier. “Limitations that may change without your consent. I would be very surprised if Minecraft saw a resurgence of great multiplayer server mods like the initial releases of MineZ, Dungeon Realms, and others.”
A lot of Minecraft’s older player base has the sense that Mojang/Microsoft have abandoned the people that made the game popular. These are the people who put in the hours nurturing the community, creating the content, and building the popularity of Minecraft as it is today.
It’s also hard to not be cynical about how Microsoft is approaching this, given that they are borrowing heavily from the community to create new game modes and pushing an alternative hosting model. After years of leaving large chunks of responsibility to private server owners, many feel betrayed by the increased pressure and lack of communication from Microsoft and Mojang.
While Minecraft’s owners are clearly hoping that they will be able to stamp out non-compliant servers without too much impact, it may be harmful to the future of the game. The pre-2014 server environment was a rich ecosystem of innovative mods, maps, and game modes, but innovation has slowed considerably today. Many luminaries of the community, like the Yogscast crew, have largely taken their talents elsewhere. [Correction- 3:26pm: We initially named CPW as one of the developers who is no longer involved with Minecraft. That is not the case. We apologize for the error.] There’s also the risk that as these long-standing communities shrink or disappear, players who inhabited them will simply move on to different games, rather than move to Realms or to a compliant server.
As Microsoft continues to push Pocket Edition and console editions while neglecting the original Java edition and its community of creators, it feels to many like Minecraft is making a shift to a more structured, corporate model. This has some benefits—more polish, better support, frequent updates—but it’s not clear that they outweigh the loss of diversity that made the game such a monumental success in the first place. Minecraft might not die, but if things continue as they are, it might not be the same game.
Rob Guthrie is a lapsed academic who writes about history, video games, and weird internet things. Follow him @RobertWGuthrie for pithy Tweets and lukewarm takes.
