by Stone Marshall | Sep 24, 2016 | Minecraft News |
For those new to Minecraft who want to add some color to it, we recommend checking our list of 5 easiest dyes to make in Minecraft.
If you didn’t live under a rock for the past couple of years, then you are certainly familiar with Minecraft video game. Released on November 18th, 2011, Minecraft is a sandbox game that allows the player to build constructions, explore, fight, craft items and much more. With over 106 million copies sold, as of June 2016, Minecraft is the best-selling PC game to date and the second best-selling video game ever, right after Tetris. This game is also available for other gaming systems and mobile phones. For those looking for mobile games with extensive story line should rather look into our list of 7 Android games with best story lines.
Now let’s talk about dyes in Minecraft since that’s why you are here. In the world of Minecraft, dyes are items used for the coloring of some mobs, leather armor, hardened clay, wool, the patterns on glass and banners. Dyes are produced by crafting or combining other dyes to make a new one. The dyes obtained by crafting are called primary, and dyes obtained by combining primary dyes (or some other items) are called secondary. It’s that simple. However, getting the preferred color isn’t a piece of cake, since some items for crafting dyes are not so easy to find.
The question is – how we managed to get our list of 5 easiest dyes to make in Minecraft? Well, first, we decided to count only primary dyes, since secondary dyes require obtaining primary first; hence, they are a lot harder to make. Then, we took three elements into consideration: the number of items needed for crafting, how easy is to find these items and finally in how many different ways dye can be made. Let’s take a look at our list, shall we?
5. Ink Sac
This is the darkest dye in Minecraft. It can be obtained in two ways. The first way is by killing squids, which drop one to three Ink Sacs upon their death. Squids spawn in water between sea level and layers 46. The other way to get Ink Sac is by fishing, where they are obtained as “junk item”. Ink Sac in combination with Bone Meal gives Gray and Light Gray Dye.
4. Lapis Lazuli
Lapis Lazuli is equivalent to the color blue. It can be obtained by mining or natural generation. Lapis Lazuli occurs in 17% chest minecarts in abandoned mineshafts. Other ways to get Lapis Lazuli include crafting Lapis Lazuli Block and smelting Lapis Lazuli Ore with any fuel. It is used to create Purple Dye, Magenta Dye, Cyan Dye and Light Blue Dye.
3. Bone Meal
The third entry on our list of 5 easiest dyes to make in Minecraft is obtained by crafting bones and bone blocks. Each bone placed in the crafting table gives you 3 Bone Meals and each bone block gives you 9 Bone Meals. Bones can be acquired from the skeletons that drop up to 2 bones after death. They are also found in 29.0% of desert temple chests, 72.2% of jungle temple chests and 57.8% of dungeon chests. Bone blocks are acquired by mining. Bone Meal is used in crafting Gray and Light Gray Dye, Lime Dye, Magenta Dye, Pink Dye, Light Blue Dye.
2. Dandelion Yellow
To make Dandelion Yellow you will only need Dandelion or Sunflower. Each of these flowers gives one Dandelion Yellow Dye when placed into the crafting table. Dandelion is widespread and can be found in Plains, Sunflower Plains, Forest, Flower Forest and any other biome in Minecraft. Sunflower only appears in Sunflower Plains. Dandelion Yellow combined with Rose Red gives Orange Dye.
1. Rose Red
Last dye on our list of 5 easiest dyes to make in Minecraft can be created by using 4 different kinds of flowers. Poppy, Red Tulip, Rose Bush or Beetroot placed in the crafting table will each give you a Rose Red Dye. They are all very easy to find. Poppy is found in Plains, Sunflower Plains, Forest, Flower Forest and any other biome in Minecraft. Red Tulip can be found in Plains, Sunflower Plains, and Flower Forest while Rose Bush appears in Forest and Flower Forest. You can get Beetroot by harvesting a fully grown crop block. Rose Ted is used in making Orange Dye, PurpleDye, Magenta Dye, Pink Dye and Cocoa Beans.
5 Easiest Dyes To Make in Minecraft
by Stone Marshall | Sep 24, 2016 | Minecraft News |
Minecon is almost here. The Minecraft-themed convention will take place at the Anaheim Convention Center in California this weekend, on September 24 and 25. Minecon will be a haven for Minecraft fans and a source of new Minecraft announcements. For iOS and Android players (and Windows 10 players), it means we’ll finally get to learn more about the upcoming Boss Update.
As announced near the end of August, the Boss Update is coming soon to Minecraft: Pocket Edition and Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition. While it’s properly called Update 0.16, they refer to it as the Boss Update because bosses are included among the new features it will add.
The Boss Update’s new enemies include the underwater Elder Guardian and the three-headed Wither. It also adds Slash commands, ocean monuments, new blocks, beacons, and more. Some aspects of this update have already been made available to players participating in the beta test on Android.
The full release of the update hasn’t been dated yet. Its announcement said it would be coming “soon-ish,” and we know it will be sometime after Minecon, but nothing more concrete has been stated about it yet.
At the end of the announcement, Mojang promised more details about the Boss Update would be provided at Minecon. Well, Minecon is almost here! We should have a better idea of what the Boss Update has in store—and when it will be released—this weekend during the convention.
If you’ve been playing Minecraft: Pocket Edition (or the Windows 10 Edition), are you looking forward to this new update? And for Android players, if you participated in the beta, share your impressions of the update in the comments.
Update 0.16, or the Boss Update, will be a major update for the Pocket Edition and Windows 10 Edition of Minecraft. What other updates do you hope to see in the future?
Learn More About Minecraft Pocket Edition’s Boss Update This Weekend
by Stone Marshall | Sep 23, 2016 | Minecraft News |
And for that matter, when will it come?
Minecraft is now available across a wide variety of devices. Since then, the console versions have been slowly catching up to the PC version as new features are added. However, it hasn’t caught up yet, and it’s been a while since it had a major update.
Although the previous update for the console version of Minecraft came this month (September 15 for the Wii U version and September 9 for all others), all it did was fix bugs and remove the ability to kick players out during mini-games.
The last console update before that came at the end of August and added a new mini game, new Battle Maps, and achievements, along with fixing bugs. (It also added the vote-to-kick option that was removed in the September update.) In fact, although there have been some skin packs, the majority of console Minecraft updates lately have been focused on mini games and bug fixes, without a lot of other content.
Some players enjoy the mini games, while others do not. There are really two ways to look at it. You could take it to mean the developers are focusing their efforts on mini games instead of other Minecraft gameplay elements players might want more (which contributes to why they dislike the mini game updates). On the other hand, you could look at it from the perspective of the developers not having major Minecraft content ready yet, but adding the mini games in order to give players new things to do.
Either way, it’s been a while since Minecraft received an important console update, so fans can look to the future and speculate on what might be added next.
What Minecraft features are you still hoping to see added to the console versions of the game? Which PC elements have yet to make the jump?
We don’t know when the next Minecraft update will come for consoles, but we’ll let you know if we learn anything new.
What Will the Next Minecraft Console Update Contain?
by Stone Marshall | Sep 23, 2016 | Minecraft News |
We go hands on with Square Enix’s answer to Minecraft, Dragon Quest Builders
Specifications
Available formats: PS4, PS3, PS Vita
The comparisons with Minecraft are inevitable. With its blocky, voxel-based landscape and reliance on crafting to make your way in the world, Dragon Quest Builders unashamedly draws on the same driving mechanisms as Mojang’s mega-hit.
And yet, for all Minecraft’s might and popularity, it’s Dragon Quest Builders that has me itching to play more. It begins in much the same way, asking players to dig deep and build their way out of a pit, before constructing a simple two-block-high house out of mud. However, Builders’ foundations go a little deeper, with the focus being on creating communities for its dozens of NPC characters that roam the dark, gloomy land of Alefgard.
It’s a simple addition to Mojang’s tried-and-tested formula, but one that helps give its minute-to-minute crafting a much-needed girder of purpose; it adds a welcome sense of structure to Minecraft’s sometimes terrifying blank canvas. Rather than leaving players to simply fend for themselves and go forth into the unknown, DQ Builders pins its progression on a string of villager mission requests, asking players to build more complex pieces of furniture in order to grow their towns and increase the resident population.
You’ll start small, first building a simple bedroom, before progressing to a workstation, kitchen and additional, decorated rooms. Eventually, though, you’ll progress onto more advanced projects and create further outposts across the world.
Of course, having played only the first three hours of Dragon Quest Builders, it’s hard to tell exactly what lies beyond the game’s rather more prescriptive set of early tutorials. However, the more quests you complete and the bigger your town becomes, the more people will flock to your newly developed digs to ply you with quests, so you should have plenty to keep you entertained over the course of its run-time.
It helps that Dragon Quest Builders keeps things simple, too, as players are automatically notified what they can make (or to use the in-game parlance, “learn new recipes”) as soon as they discover a new material. Of course, some might say this takes the fun out of the experimental nature of crafting, but for me, it only strengthens DQ Builders’ commitment to making the game more accessible. I provides an easy way to keep on top of your ever-growing inventory and spiralling list of objectives.
For starters, there’s less guesswork involved, and it provides an immediate indication of whether you’re on the right track. This enables you to carefully focus your efforts, rather than simply going out and gathering every last mineral you see and hoping for the best. You’ll still need a workstation to see the rest of the necessary ingredients, but it really doesn’t take much to set up shop and get crafting.
The only thing DQ Builders doesn’t quite improve on is Minecraft’s combat. While the cast of creatures draws extensively from Dragon Quest’s lauded bestiary, defeating them and claiming their prized materials still boils down to crudely beating them with sticks – or, eventually, whacking them with a hammer.
It’s entirely lacking in that classic turn-based combat for which the series is known, but then switching to a dedicated battle screen every time you encounter an enemy would severely hamper the game’s overall pace, so I can understand the need to keep battles taking place in real-time. It remains to be seen how Builders handles larger enemies, but for now, it certainly helps make short work of the general rank and file.
There isn’t long to go now before the game’s final release. Coming to PS4, PS3 and the PS Vita on 14 October (all with cross-play compatibility, I might add), Dragon Quest Builders looks like it could finally be a worthy contender to Minecraft’s crown, offering a more mature, structured take on gaming’s unstoppable behemoth.
I’ll have to wait and see how the combat fares later on in the game, but for now, Dragon Quest Builders is definitely one to watch for would-be Minecraft players.
Dragon Quest Builders channels Minecraft into something greater
by Stone Marshall | Sep 22, 2016 | Minecraft News |
Beware if you tend to veer into dystopian paranoia: Cinemark CEO Mark Zoradi offered a glimpse of moviegoing’s future Wednesday, and it includes windowless rooms where our children have replaced Little League baseball with Minecraft tourneys.
The executive said Wednesday that Cinemark anticipates virtual reality and gaming as opportunities for “significant alternative content” to the traditional feature-length films in its theater chain, which is the third biggest in the US by number of screens.
The comment is a sign of the shifting tastes of consumers. Once upon a time, a simple run of movies was enough to satisfy audiences. Now tastes have gotten more sophisticated as consumers seek more-immersive forms of entertainment.
Zoradi touted the opportunity for hosting video-gaming events both for players and spectators. Commonly known as e-sports, video gaming as spectator entertainment has been growing in mainstream popularity, with researcher Superdata estimating its worldwide audience will widen to 275 million people this year.
Plano, Texas-based Cinemark is already hosting Super League Gaming competitions, which Zoradi likened to video game Little League. “Your kids are in a league…and they’re playing literally in our seats on their laptops against another team in another city,” he said.
Zoradi also said the company is looking into all aspects of bringing virtual reality into theaters. That could be “pods” for individual viewers to watch 15-minute VR shorts in theater lobbies, or it could mean group VR experiences inside some of its small cinemas, he said, speaking at the Goldman Sachs investor conference in New York.
Cinemark is the latest to talk up virtual reality, an entertainment format that makes viewers feel like they’re in the middle of the action. It’s among the buzziest consumer technologies this year, as big investments in VR hardware by tech giants like Facebook and Samsung start to deliver those products to consumers more widely.
Cinemark’s bigger rival AMC has begun bringing virtual-reality demos into its theaters. In the last year, it’s offered some moviegoers the opportunity to check out VR experiences related to the “Paranormal Activity” franchise and “The Jungle Book.”
Last year, Zoradi said VR wasn’t likely to be a “big strategic initiative” for the company in the near future.
Coming soon to a theater near you: VR pods and Minecraft?
by Stone Marshall | Sep 22, 2016 | Minecraft News |
As Minecraft developer Mojang is gearing up for Minecon 2016 in Anaheim this weekend, the game studio has announced today that it has partnered with American toy manufacturing company Mattel to bring your Minecraft avatar to life. Minecon attendees will be able to use the company’s skin printing service to create a skin for a nice figurine with the Minecraft avatar of their choice:
It’s seriously cool. You craft the look of your unique figure by using an actual skin from the game. Mattel creates and prints a custom label based on your in-game skin (or one of the exclusive soon-to-be-revealed MINECON 2016 designs!), and then you stick it onto the figure.
dwv90_c_17_202-887×630 Mattel teams with Minecraft to deliver 3D printed skins, available at Minecon
Minecon attendees will be able to design their own Minecraft figurine.
To try the skin-printing service, attendees will have to purchase a Survival Mode Player One Figure ($15.00 + tax) at the the Mattel booth and also print their label over there. To get prepared, Mojang is inviting all attendees to check the skin editing app Skin Studio which is available on iOS and Android devices.
Additionally, Mojang has announced today the release of a new Minecraft Snapshot tagged 16W38A and you can find the full list of changes and bug fixes below:
Notable changes:
The poor squids shouldn’t spawn in lava anymore. At least I would not enjoy spawning in lava
We have a new gamerule: maxEntityCramming
Mooshrooms now really appreciates to walk on mycelium. Probably it feels soft and cosy on their hooves
Bugs fixed in 16w38a:
[Bug MC-3841] – Attacking an unsaddled pig while holding a saddle saddles the pig
[Bug MC-36927] – Durability of Golden Swords occasionally dropped by Zombie Pigmen is not random (always 25)
[Bug MC-46456] – Written books given by command crashes when copied in crafting table if “Author” is missing
[Bug MC-61997] – squids spawn in lava
[Bug MC-66946] – 2-block tall hitbox on small armor stands.
[Bug MC-67406] – Small armor stands display items differently than normal ones
[Bug MC-70424] – Baby Zombie Pigmen’s sword slightly tiled forward
[Bug MC-70738] – Killing Guardian with Lava does not give Cooked Fish
[Bug MC-80551] – You can place redstone, doors, rails etc. onto 7/8 layers of snow
[Bug MC-86130] – Shields changes its base color when damaged & repaired / Crafting different in colors results in damage
[Bug MC-86164] – armor stands can’t be renamed by name tag
[Bug MC-89921] – Elytra not rendered on entities/mobs
[Bug MC-91383] – Horses (now only skeleton horses and zombie horses) drop different amount of loot than before
[Bug MC-92772] – Saddled pigs don’t drop saddle with doMobLoot=false
[Bug MC-92776] – Ink sacs are fished in stacks of 1 instead of 10
[Bug MC-93435] – Cobblestone walls listed in “Building Blocks” tab
[Bug MC-93609] – Player is floating above the saddle of a mule
[Bug MC-93824] – Feeding golden carrot to breed horse works if InLove is greater than 0
[Bug MC-94476] – Killing Rabbits with Looting does not give more raw rabbit
[Bug MC-94947] – Chicken “steping” sound still works when the chicken is swimming
[Bug MC-95450] – Villager Loot Table missing
[Bug MC-95469] – Middle click / pick block on farmland gives dirt
[Bug MC-96499] – Boats collide with any entity (Arrows, Paintings, etc.) even if Marker:1b is on (armor stand)
[Bug MC-98260] – Water bottles have inconsistent NBT tag depending on how you obtain them.
[Bug MC-99602] – Impossible to detect Water Bottle from ocean in player’s inventory
[Bug MC-100950] – Boats can travel / remain on the fog of lingering potion / dragon’s breath
[Bug MC-101615] – Silverfish do more damage to players on easy difficulty than on normal difficulty
[Bug MC-101642] – Iron golem / VillagerGolem is holding red flower client side 400 ticks too long
[Bug MC-103339] – Mushroom Cows do not path to mycelium, but grass. Causes unintended spawning requirements
[Bug MC-105071] – Random green/gray dot in anvil GUI
[Bug MC-106485] – Banner applied to a Shield doesn’t change the shield correctly
[Bug MC-106747] – Wither bosses break structure blocks / structure voids
[Bug MC-106842] – Target selector stops parsing its arguments if an entry is not =
[Bug MC-106896] – Crash when using backspace after deleting all the characters in the name of anything with a custom one
[Bug MC-107054] – lit_furnace item model but no item
[Bug MC-107055] – 2 models for old wooden slab’s item
[Bug MC-107062] – Hitting backspace in the anvil naming field when empty causes the game to crash
For those of you who can’t wait for the release of the 1.11 build of Minecraft, the game developer added that it will reveal “info about several new exciting 1.11 features” during Minecon 2016. The annual event will take place on September 24-25 at Anaheim Convention Center and those of you who can’t attend will be able to watch the live stream on the dedicated website.
Mattel teams with Minecraft to deliver 3D printed skins, available at Minecon
