by Stone Marshall | Oct 30, 2016 | Minecraft News |
Your blocky Minecraft worlds could soon invade reality.
During a Windows 10 event in New York City, Microsoft revealed that Minecraft players will be able to 3D print their creations next year. The same goes for what they build inside Paint 3D, the new art creation tool that Microsoft also unveiled at the event. This will be possible thanks to the Creator’s Update, which will hit the operating system in early 2017.
You’ll be able to upload creations from both to Remix 3D, a new Microsoft community where Windows users can share their work. Creations from the 3D modelling software SketchUp can also be put on Remix 3D. This is also where you’ll be able to 3D print these virtual objects.
Minecraft is one of the most popular titles of the $99.6 billion gaming industry, which is why Microsoft bought the game and its developer Mojang in 2014 for $2.5 billion. Minecraft is famous for user-generated content, and now its players can make their virtual creations real.
The social aspect has also been important for Minecraft. Remix 3D will give players a new place to check out friends’ creations without even having to boot up the game.
Microsoft’s Remix 3D lets you share and print 3D creations from Minecraft and Paint 3D
by Stone Marshall | Oct 29, 2016 | Minecraft News |
The Nov. 1 launch of a “Minecraft” version tailored for the classroom is exciting educators and parents alike.
“Phenomenal” is how Mark Minghella describes the test version of “Minecraft: Education Edition,” the new iteration of the popular building game.
“I’ve got an overwhelmingly … positive attitude toward ‘Minecraft’ in the classroom,” says Minghella, a technology teacher in the nation’s capital at the British International School of Washington. He says he was familiar with “Minecraft” thanks to his two kids. “It’s actually being used for education purposes and not just for students to play games.”
Minghella says the game can help students understand the concepts involved with building a sustainable community, as well as how to work collaboratively, overcome obstacles and prioritize tasks.
“Minecraft” gamers can build their own worlds. Stealth/YouTube
“Understanding that logical sequencing and systems thinking” is one of the many benefits of gaming for students, says Lisa Douthit, an emerging technology teacher with the Turner Unified School District of Kansas City, Kansas. “It’s all about logical thinking and critical thinking, and how it expands that student’s mind from that perspective.”
For Microsoft, the parent company of “Minecraft,” the foray appears to make sense, as the game-based learning market is expected to reap revenues of $4.9 billion by 2019. The company, which acquired “Minecraft” developer Mojang for $2.5 billion in 2014 in one of the largest acquisitions in gaming history, announced the updated game version in January. The original “Minecraft” version has seen more than 100 million downloads on PCs alone since 2009.
Based on MinecraftEdu, a licensed game developed by TeacherGaming LLC and purchased by Microsoft earlier this year, “Minecraft: Education Edition” has been free to more than 35,000 students and teachers around the world taking part in an early access program. Since June, schools and students have been testing the new edition, providing feedback to the company to refine the game before its official launch.
“We have high hopes for this title to be a game-changer in classrooms around the world,” Deirdre Quarnstrom, director of “Minecraft” education at Microsoft, tells U.S. News. “Our first priority in the short term is driving awareness of the new title and getting continued educator feedback to finesse the experience as we go.”
“Minecraft: Education Edition” provides a team-play mode for up to 30 students and allows them to take pictures of their work for teachers to track their development. It also adds a chalkboard feature so teachers can post information or give instructions during the game. It has a single sign-on feature for privacy and security protection, and a non-player character function in the November version enables educators to act as guides within the game.
The technical nature of the game itself may impede classroom adoption for some, as it takes place in an open “sandbox” format in which players build worlds from scratch using 3-D blocks.
“For educators who know and love ‘Minecraft,’ the blank canvas is an exciting opportunity, but for those who are new to ‘Minecraft,’ this format can be overwhelming,” Microsoft’s Quarnstrom admits.
But features like an in-depth tutorial, lesson plans, a variety of templated worlds and a classroom mode can help reduce the learning curve. So-called “Minecraft” mentors will be available to aid teachers working to incorporate the game into classwork as well.
That schools and interested parents will adopt the game on a widespread level is the gamble Microsoft is taking. “Minecraft: Education Edition” will be available in the Windows Store for $5 per user per year from Nov. 1, while schools also can obtain the game under a districtwide licensing agreement that charges in the range of $1 to $2 per user per year, the “Minecraft” team tells U.S. News in an email.
The November launch comes as efforts to connect more classrooms to the internet have ramped up in recent years, involving advocates such as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in the nonprofit world and the Obama administration on the federal level. Yet concerns about children and teens spending too much time watching television or using other media devices remain prevalent, with the American Academy of Pediatrics recommending parents set consistent limits on such activities.
“Minecraft” encourages logical thinking and critical thinking, educators say. Stealth/YouTube
But while some may balk at the idea of making gaming a focal point in the classroom, most of the educators contacted by U.S. News say they have overwhelming support from parents.
“There are definitely parents who would not agree to applying gaming, but I would like to think that it is a function of not understanding the association with the learning objectives,” says Steven Isaacs, a game design and development teacher at William Annin Middle School in New Jersey, who also will be serving as a “Minecraft” mentor.
Minghella says his school did receive a complaint from a parent who was not convinced about the benefits of applying gaming to the classroom. But he says most parents have been very supportive.
“I think that some parents play games and as such, get the idea. Some don’t play games but understand that we can harness games to enhance education. Finally, some don’t play games and can’t see past games as being anything more than just games,” Minghella says.
He also thinks efforts by schools and teachers can mitigate parents’ worries. The British International School of Washington, for example, hosted a “Minecraft for Parents” event to let parents experience the game and see what the students can learn.
Mark Blair, a technology specialist with the Douglas County School District in Colorado, says some teachers testing the game did have technical difficulties getting it running. But he thinks those issues will be minimized in the new edition, in which teachers will simply have to create a world for the students to operate within after joining.
“Because they added some new modifications for teachers to better manage their class, and to be able to do things like coding and other things that teachers are interested in, it’s just easier for teachers to adopt it,” says Mimi Ito, research director of the Digital Media and Learning Hub at the University of California—Irvine. Ito also is a co-founder of Connected Camps, a for-profit online learning organization through which teenage coaches use “Minecraft” to teach younger children computer coding and Spanish.
Some educators and after-school programs already using the standard “Minecraft” version may be reluctant to switch to the education edition, worried it may pale in comparison to some of the original’s more powerful features, such as modded weapons, characters and game modes.
Whether students can continue their learning at home using the education edition is another question for users. While Microsoft has said kids can play the game at home as well, Ito notes their particular identity in the game is tied to where they currently attend school, meaning switching to another may force them to start from scratch or scrap the game altogether.
“What’s very important for our learning model is that it’s about having a social relationship, a community, being a part of a shared ‘Minecraft’ server community,” Ito says. “And in order to do that, kids need to be able to connect from home and need to be able to maintain that ‘Minecraft’ identity, which is different from the education edition where the school is going to buy the accounts and the school owns the account for whatever period of time that they want to subscribe their kids.”
However, Douthit says she’s excited to see how the new version evolves.
“Obviously they are developing their regular version of ‘Minecraft,’ so I have great confidence that they are gonna do the same with the teacher version,” she says.
Microsoft Aims to Build on ‘Minecraft’ Success
by Stone Marshall | Oct 29, 2016 | Minecraft News |
Today’s Apple event might be about new Macs, but the company is taking time to detail updates for its other products too. First up: Apple TV. On stage today, CEO Tim Cook said that the box now offers access to over 8,000 apps, and will soon become home to one of the most popular games on both consoles and mobile: Minecraft. That’s right, Microsoft’s huge open-world sandbox game will be available on Apple TV “by the end of the year.”
Apple has provided no additional details about what is in store but you’ll likely want to invest in a third-party controller to get the most from the title. Sure, Apple’s new wireless remote sports a touchpad and hosts more buttons than the minimalist silver remote that shipped with the company’s older streamers but we imagine it won’t be the best tool to help you (or the little ones) build that all-important End Portal. We’ve contacted Microsoft and Mojang for more details and will bring you more information as we get it.
‘Minecraft’ is coming to Apple TV
by Stone Marshall | Oct 25, 2016 | Awesome Book News, Minecraft News |
Earlier today we saw the first Logan trailer, which is cut to Johnny Cash‘s cover of NIN’s “Hurt.” Perhaps not a terribly subtle song choice, but it’s pretty damn effective. The fun nod to Mangold’s Walk the Line aside, the song choice also hints the filmmaker is bringing audiences a slightly different offering from the superhero genre, and that was the Mangold and 20th Century Fox’s intent with the trailer.
Below, James Mangold discusses Logan’s timeline and his aspirations for the film.
Mangold believes Cash’s music makes the trailer stand apart from the “standard, bombastic, brooding orchestral, swish-bang, doors opening and slamming, explosions kind of methodology of some of these movies.” Another way Mangold wants Logan to stand out from the herd? By making the stakes less global, more personal. Logan isn’t saving the world this time.
In an interview with Empire, Mangold talks about how his film is driven more by character than conventional genre spectacle:
Hugh and I have been talking about what we would do since we were working on the last one, and for both of us it was this requirement that, to be even interested in doing it, we had to free ourselves from some assumptions that had existed in the past, and be able to change the tone a bit. Not merely to change for change’s sake, but also to make something that’s speaking to the culture now, that’s not just the same style — how many times can they save the world in one way or another? How can we construct a story that’s built more on character and character issues, in a way as if it almost wasn’t a superhero movie, yet it features their powers and struggles and themes.
To make the character more vulnerable his healing powers have been slowed down. The Logan we see in the trailer is scarred and battered, a true depiction of Old Man Logan. Mangold explains Jackman and him had the freedom to play with certain rules and traditions from the X-Men series:
One of the things we all thought about as we worked on this film is, well, we don’t want to rebuild everything. We want to have some questions. In order to make a different Logan, and a different tone of a Wolverine movie, we felt like we couldn’t hold on to every tradition established in all the movies religiously, or we’d be trapped by the decisions made before us. So we questioned whether Logan’s healing factor causes him to heal without even a scar. We imagined that it may have when he was younger, but with age, he’s getting older and ailing. Perhaps his healing factor no longer produces baby-soft skin. So we imagined he heals quickly, still, but it leaves a scar. The simple idea was that his body would start to get a little more ravaged with a kind of tattooing of past battles, lacerations that remain of previous conflicts.
Although Mangold wants to dig deeper under Logan’s skin, that doesn’t mean we’re not going to see the character unleash his claws and go berzerk in Logan. Mangold promises visceral, R-rated action, which, based on the trailer, relies far more on practical effects and real environments than CGI:
This represents] to me the kind of aggressive, classical Wolverine action that we want in the movie – more of something that fans have been asking for, for a really long time. We’ve been limited in one way or another from giving it to them, but I think we’ve got the go-ahead to really go for it on this picture. So we’re really trying to deliver what folks have always imagined those kind of battles would look like. There is a lot of high-octane action in the movie. We’re just trying to do it very differently and very viscerally.
Mangold doesn’t have much to say about Laura Kinney (Dafne Keen) or Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook). He’d prefer to maintain a little mystery regarding those characters. The director does say Holbrook brings some humor to the villain, though, and that Keen’s character is a part of the film’s family. Mangold tells Empire that Logan, first and foremost, is a movie about family. Based on the trailer, and Jacob’s breakdown, this family is going to get put through the wringer next March.
Logan opens in theaters March 3rd, 2017.
James Mangold Reveals ‘Logan’s’ Timeline and Talks Unique Tone
by Stone Marshall | Oct 25, 2016 | Minecraft News, Minecraft questions, parent-news |
If you still haven’t taken Minecraft: Story Mode for a spin, your patience (or stubbornness) is being rewarded in the form of some gratis gaming. For a limited time, you can get your hands on the first chapter free of charge.
Telltale announced this week that they have made the first chapter of Minecraft: Story Mode 100 percent free across multiple platforms, including the Xbox Marketplace, iOS, Google Play, the Amazon Appstore, and the PlayStation Network. Pretty much anywhere you can play the game (and there are certainly a large number), you can get in on the action for no initial investment.
To make this news even better, Telltale has announced that, after you give the first chapter a go, you can get the rest of the episodic series at a discounted rate. So not only can you play for a couple of hours with no commitment, you can keep right on trucking for a fraction of the original asking price.
There are a few options when it comes to purchasing the full game, including the Season Pass, Adventure Pass, Season Pass Deluxe and The Complete Adventure across various platforms. There’s also the physical game disc, which can be purchased at retail. No matter which route you go, you’ll find that Minecraft: Story Mode has seen a reduced rate, though we’d argue that publishers are getting a bit carried away with all of these different packages.
In total, Minecraft: Story Mode comes in at eight episodes. That’s five episodes from the core game, plus the additional three episodes from the Adventure Pass. That’s a break in the norm for Telltale, who tend to keep their episodic games, including The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Tales From the Borderlands, Batman and the like, to about five episodes.
Starting next Tuesday, Oct. 25, Minecraft: Story Mode — The Complete Adventure will be available at retail for $29.99. That’s a pretty nice price point for all of that blocky goodness. This physical version of the game will be available for the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. A PC launch is planned for the near future.
If you’re new to Telltale games, they don’t really venture below “fantastic” in the quality department these days, and reviews for Minecraft: Story Mode show that it does a good job of keeping that tradition alive. It’s got a solid cast, too, featuring Patton Oswalt, Catherine Taber, Ashley Johnson, Corey Feldman, John Hodgman, Paul Reubens, Sean Astin and more.
For those of you who have already plowed through everything Telltale’s Minecraft has to offer, we’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Not that people should need extra convincing to try a free chapter, but is this something folks might want to move to the top of their “to do” list?
Here’s How You Can Play Minecraft: Story Mode For Free
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