Farming Melons

Minecraft 1.0 Update

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 16:40:32 -0500

Yesterday, Mojang officially released Minecraft 1.0. The update officially brings the game out of beta. Minecraft has come a long way since it’s early days. Who would have thought that it would sell 4 Million copies before it was even complete? Of course, a game like this is never complete. Notch and Jeb will still be working to release updates to the game, although perhaps less frequently.

Users of the 1.9 prereleases won’t experience many changes in the game other than bugfixes and polishes. However, anyone who hasn’t updated their game previously will be happy to know that 1.0 brings tons of new features such as magic potions, New monsters, and terrain generator tweaks.

Since Minecraft left Beta yesterday,the game has been selling an average of one copy every five seconds, and it still hasn’t stopped. 1.0 brings tons of new polishes and bugfixes that really make Notch and Jeb proud to call this their game.

My apologies for the short post. However, if you liked reading this, be sure to follow us on tumblr!

1.9 Prerelease 6: THE END

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 12:17:27 -0500

The End. Up until now, it has been a desolate floating island, home to armies of endermen and odd obsidian spikes. The only way to find The End is to go through a natrually- created portal found in a stronghold. The only way to leave the end was to die.

However, with the introduction of prerelease 6, The End features Minecraft’s first fully- functional boss fight. This fight is with Ender Dragons, which were previously unobtainable without mods or hacks. Now, The End dimension will natrually spawn one Ender Dragon.

When in the end, there will be a health meter for the dragon in the top of the screen. Currently, the title says “Boss Health”, but the name may change. Ender Dragons are fairly difficult to kill, especially because of the healing pillars which now spawn in The End.

The obsidian spikes now spawn with some sort of healing beacon on top of them. When the Ender Dragon is close to it, it will regain health. This means that for you to truly be successful in destroying the dragon, you must destroy all of these pillars. Once they have been destroyed, the dragon will no longer regain health. It can take quite a while to damage it enough to kill it, but it is possible. The dragons have critical hitboxes (Hit the neck or head to do extra damage). Once killed, the dragon will drop 20,000 experience orbs.

Directly below the dragon’s point of death, a portal back to the overworld will spawn. Above the portal is an Ender Dragon Egg, which currently has no use.

Following the portal will bring you to the “Win Game” screen, where you’ll see scrolling text. This scrolling text includes credits and a ten- minute epilogue.

Upon finishing watching the credits, you’ll spawn in your overworld spawn point. You can play the game as much as you want at this point. Contrary to common belief, “Winning the Game” does not render your worlds unplayable.

Currently, this is all of the information available about Minecraft’s End dimension. Be sure to check out the new prerelease and try the boss battle for yourself! Thanks for reading this article! If you would like to read more like this, be sure to follow Farming Melons!

Mod Spotlight: MAtmos Atmosphere 1.8.1

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 19:29:50 -0400

MAtmos atmosphere mod is one of the best gameplay- changing mods. Gameplay changing mods, unlike game changing mods, will not add blocks or items. Instead, they change visuals or audio. The MAtmos atmosphere will undoubtedly give you the best Minecraft audio experience that you’ve ever had.

MAtmos does more than just add sounds. It adds atmosphere. MAtmos constantly analyzes your location to provide you with the most fitting ambient noises available. When in a forest, you’ll hear birds chirping. On a high mountain, you’ll hear blowing wind. Diving underwater will immerse you in realistic underwater sounds. Underground, you may hear water dripping from cave walls.

Best of all, MAtmos doesn’t stop at the default nature sounds. Its author has created support for plug- ins. The most popular plugin is the Weapon Interactions plugin. This will play sword swinging sounds and bow string- pulling sounds. It makes the game’s combat a lot more immersive.

MAtmos is a must- have mod. It adds to the experience of the game without changing your gameplay. It works on singleplayer and clientside on all multiplayer servers. Download it at http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/379925-181-matmos-r6-environmental-sound-atmosphere-simulator/

Thanks for reading this article. If you enjoyed it, be sure to follow Farming Melons for the latest news and the hottest mods!

Mod Spotlight- Elemental Arrows [1.8.1]

Sat, 29 Oct 2011 10:49:00 -0400

Risugami is a famous modder who is most well known for Modloader. Modloader is currently the most downloaded mod, because nearly all other mods run off of it. However, being the java mastermind he is, Risugami did more than just make modloader. Risugami has made many mods, including the Elemental Arrows mod, which deserves a lot more attention than it has.

The Elemental Arrows mod fits in nicely with the vanilla game. The arrows which are overpowered are difficult to obtain, while some of the less powerful arrows will be easy to get. There are five types of elemental arrows:

Fire Arrow

The fire arrow is crafted like a normal arrow, but with coal instead of flint. The fire arrow will ignite mobs and blocks on contact.

Ice Arrow

This is crafted like a normal arrow, but using a snowball instead of flint. The ice arrow will freeze water, turn lava into obsidian, or put out fires. It has no slowing effects on mobs, unfortunately.

Egg Arrow

The egg arrow is crafted with an egg instead of flint. While it was originally a joke weapon, Risugami has added a secret feature to them. When you shoot the egg arrow at a block, it will spawn a chicken. However, the secret is that shooting a monster will transform that monster into a chicken! This means you can effectively get rid of enemies with a single arrow!

Explosive Arrow

The explosive arrow is crafted like a normal arrow, but with gunpowder instead of flint. On impact with a block or mob, it will create a small explosion (about the size of a creeper blast).

Lightning Arrow

The lightning arrow is undoubtedly the most fun arrow in the mod. It strikes lightning wherever it hits, as the title may suggest. Unfortunately, it uses a diamond in the recipe, making it difficult(and inefficient) to use.

This mod also adds the Homing Bow, which is crafted like a normal bow, but with 3 diamonds instead of 3 sticks. The Homing Bow, when shot, will shoot an arrow that will pathfind to the nearest mob (excluding the player, of course). The homing bow can fire any type of arrow.

The elemental arrows mod adds a lot of fun features to the game without overpowering the default combat style or taking away from the vanilla feel of the game. Be sure to download it!

Thanks for reading. If you liked this post and want to be updated on the hottest mods and newest Minecraft news, be sure to follow Farming Melons!

EDIT: This post has brought us up to 111 followers total! Thanks, everyone!

1.9 Pre5 is out!

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:34:53 -0400

Earlier today, Jeb released prerelease 5. Unfortunately, staying true to the promise of “feature freeze”, this release doesn’t add any new features; for the most part, it only fixes bugs.

One notable bugfix is that lily pads will now be colored in your inventory, as well as have their own tooltip.

Enchanted weapons with Sharpness, Smite, or Bane of Arthopods will deal an extra 0.5- 2 hearts more than they did in the previous release, making them more worthwhile. Also, breaking a chest with an enchanted item will no longer un- enchant the item.

In the last prerelease, the Silk Touch enchantment was introduced. This allowed you to pick up any block, even if it was supposed to be unobtainable. If you picked up a monster spawner and re- placed it, it would always turn out to be a pig spawner. Many people wanted this to be fixed so that they could make mob grinders and things like that. Well, this prerelease brings horrible disappointment to those people. Now you can’t pick up mob spawners at all. Also, you can no longer get Silk Touch and Fortune(double- drop enchantment) on the same tool.

Grass, dirt, stone, gravel, planks, netherrack, glowstone, and iron/diamond/gold blocks have minor graphical changes. Many of the changes aren’t very noticable, but they tend to make the game look slightly better. (View Image)

Aside from all this, there have been some great performance improvements; something the community has been asking for ever since 1.9. To try out the new release, just check out Jeb’s tweet (Click Here).

What do you think of the new prerelease? Leave a comment with your opinion. Thanks for reading this article, be sure to follow Farming Melons for the latest Minecraft news and the hottest mods.

Mod Spotlight- "Mine Up!" [1.8.1]

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 17:12:00 -0400

The “Mine Up!” mod is a great mod with potential to be added into the vanilla game. There have been many mods that raise the game’s height limit, but this one takes the feature to a whole new level.

This mod will put the nether below the overworld. That means that if you dig deep enough, you can actually access Minecraft “Hell” without a portal. This can be very useful seeing as you no longer have to spend so much time mining obsidian.

The mod also makes Notch’s unused Sky Dimension legitimately accessible. If you build up (very) high, you’ll reach it. Because of the fact that anything in the sky dimension would fall down to the overworld, the creator of the mod has made it so that gravel and waterfalls won’t spawn in the Skylands. This way, your overworld will be completely unaltered.

If you’re not already completely sold on this mod, you may want to know that there is an optional fourth dimension. This would be the Skyblock dimension, which, when enabled, spawns in between the Skylands and the overworld. The skyblock dimension is simply a layer with small blocks of land scattered about. This is based off of the popular “Skyblock Survival” map.

The “Mine Up!” mod is a must- have mod. If you’re looking for something to liven up your 1.8 experience, then this is it. Download the mod at its forum page. Thanks for reading. For the latest Minecraft news and the hottest mods, be sure to follow Farming Melons.

Potion Brewing: A Simple Guide

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:03:43 -0400

If you’re using 1.9 Pre4, chances are that you’ve toyed around with potion brewing. The problem with potion brewing is that because there are so many steps in the process, it can be difficult to remember all of the recipes and combinations of ingredients. However, there are a few patterns that can make things easier for you. Certain ingredients will almost always have the same effects. Just remember these key ingredients, and you’ll be making the most powerful potions in no time!

Glowstone Dust

Glowstone dust is used to increase a potion’s power. It will, however, decrease the duration of the potion’s effect.

Redstone Dust

Redstone dust is used to increase a potion’s duration. However, it will generally decrease the potion’s effectiveness.

Fermented Spider Eye

The fermented spider eye will turn any potion into a negative potion. For example, brewing a fermented spider eye into an instant health potion will turn it into an instant damage potion.

Gunpowder

Once you are satisfied with your potion, you can optionally add gunpowder to it to turn it into a splash potion. Upon right clicking with a splash potion, you will throw it instead of drinking it. The potion will effect multiple mobs around its area of impact. Splash potions are the only real reason to craft potions with harmful effects.

To actually get a potion which can be effected by these ingredients, you’ll first have to make a base potion. There are three base potions:

Thick Potion- Brew glowstone dust into a water bottle
Awkward Potion- Brew nether wart into a water bottle
Mundane Potion- Made by brewing either redstone dust, blaze powder, a glistering melon, or a spider eye into a water bottle

None of the base potions have effects, but you can brew other ingredients into them to make more effective potions. To view a simple list of the potion recipes, Click Here.

Thanks for reading. If you found this article helpful, or want to stay updated with the latest Minecraft news and the hottest mods, be sure to follow Farming Melons! Happy Brewing!

Minecraft's Cross- Platform Future

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 17:26:00 -0400

Being based on java, Minecraft has always been compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux. However, this year, they’re making huge advancements to cross- platform support.

Earlier this year, mojang released the first version of Minecraft: Pocket Edition. This version was only compatible with the Xperia Play, an android- based gaming phone with the controls of a PSP. As well as singleplayer, this edition had local wireless network multiplayer, allowing you to play with any nearby friends who happen to have an Xperia Play.

Mojang continued to work away at compatibility, and the recently release Minecraft: Pocket Edition to all android phones.

This version of the pocket edition included all the features of the previous version, but it includes innovative touch screen controls. While the controls may be difficult to get used to, they are some of the best you’ll get on a smartphone game.

Mojang has now made their game available to all android users. Still, there are plenty of people out there with other types of phones that can’t play Minecraft: Pocket Edition. While it previously seemed those people were out of luck, today @Kappische tweeted that Mojang would be having meetings on Minecraft for iOS and XBLA.

Making Minecraft compatible with iOS would be huge. seeing as it’s already been coded for touch controls, we can expect to see Minecraft: Pocket Edition in the app store very soon. This would mean that the game would work on the apple iTouch, iPhone, and iPad. Mojang would be reaching a huge new audience, and it’s likely to bring Minecraft’s popularity even further.

Minecraft for XBLA(Xbox Live Arcade) has been in the making for months now. Because java can’t run on Microsoft’s Xbox gaming consoles, Mojang has hired coders to completely translate Minecraft into Microsoft’s game platform. Reaching out to console gamers would essentially make Minecraft playable by everyone. However, the Xbox version won’t be a direct translation of the PC version. Mojang has stated that the crafting system needs to be completely redone. Also, while it has not been said, it’s likely that multiplayer servers will require quite a change as well. After all, without a special keyboard- controller, players wouldn’t be able to input chat messages very easily. Many people speculate that Minecraft multiplayer servers will be equipped with voice chat, similar to many popular console FPS games.

Mojang is undoubtedly reaching out to potential customers, trying to close the gap of people that don’t play Minecraft. What will come in Minecraft’s future? Perhaps Windows phones will get compatibility, or even other consoles like the PS3 or Wii? The possibilities are endless. Thanks for reading. Be sure to follow Farming Melons for the latest news and the hottest mods.

Mod Spotlight: Tale of Kingdoms 1.8.1

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 10:10:00 -0400

The Tale of Kingdoms mod is arguably one of the best Minecraft mods ever made. The forum topic for it was released less than a month ago, and it recently was featured on the Minecraft Forum homepage, making its popularity skyrocket. This mod is still a work in progress, but it already has progress making it comparable to the famous Aether mod. With trading, quests, and more, the Tale of Kingdoms mod reminds us what an RPG is truly supposed to be.

Upon beginning a new world, you will be given an option to begin your quest. Beginning the quest will spawn a large guild near you. The guild will automatically be populated by various types of NPCs.

Your first goal is to locate the Guild Master. Once you have found him, you can sign a contract with him. This contract is the first step to becoming a king. Once it is signed, you must prove yourself an honorable citizen. Honor points are obtained by killing monsters. However, it’s good to note that you will have to kill a lot of monsters before completing this mission. The best way to accomplish is build a base near the guild and play Minecraft as you would normally. Eventually, you’ll have enough honor to move on to the next quest.

That’s part of the beauty of this mod: It doesn’t change the game too much. Sure, there’s a huge guild and NPCs, but you don’t have to stay there. You can play Minecraft as you would normally, and still have the benefits of trading and hired fighters.

The trading is actually quite simple. In the main courtyard, there is a merchant. Right- clicking on the merchant will bring up a GUI. You can buy armor, tools, and weapons from the merchant. However, you can sell virtually any item to the merchant in exchange for gold coins. This allows you to convert any useless items you may have into anything that money can buy: Food, tools, armor, weapons, or even a hired fighter!

Not only is this mod extremely fun, but the guild has some of the most innovative and beautiful architecture that you’ll ever see.

As previously mentioned, this mod is a WIP. The creator plans to make it so that you can build an empire and fight enemy empires from the Nether. Hopefully, some of the mod’s flaws will be resolved. Currently, you can destroy any part of the building without repercussions. In fact, you can even kill villagers without anyone noticing. However, the mod is still very rewarding. No one explains this mod better than the creator himself, so be sure to watch his explanatory video:

All in all, the Tale of Kingdoms mod is a great mod. It makes fighting and mining extremely rewarding, and brings new levels of challenge into the game. It has infinite potential, and is sure to amaze the community with new updates. Thanks for reading this mod spotlight. Be sure to follow Farming Melons for the latest Minecraft news and the hottest Minecraft mods.

Mod Spotlight: Slime Compass

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 11:54:00 -0400

Ever since sticky pistons were implemented, slimeballs have been in high demand. Unfortunately, slimes are extremely rare. This is because slimes only spawn in special “slime- spawning chunks”. Only 10% of chunks are slime spawning chunks, which makes it nearly impossible to find slimes. In the past, people have had to use external programs to map out the slime spawning chunks of their world.

Tools like these require you to exit the game and upload your world files; they completely stop the flow of gameplay. Fortunately, redditor Sir_Tiffy has created a mod that will help a lot of us out.

Crafting a slime compass is similar to crafting a normal compass, with the redstone dust in the middle replaced with an ender pearl (While slimeballs would have been a more logical recipe, the whole point of this mod is to help people who are unable to get slimeballs). The slime compass will point to the nearest slime- spawning chunk. If no slime- spawning chunks are within the render distance, it will spin randomly(such as the vanilla compass in the Nether). Once you are inside a slime- spawning chunk, the red light at the top- left of the compass will turn green. The mod’s author has created a video demonstrating this.

The slime compass mod is great for anyone who wants to craft sticky pistons. This mod is salvage from the currently unfair slime- spawning system. Sir_Tiffy has also created the Death Compass mod, which points to the place you last died. Both of these mods are great additions, and have potential to be implemented in vanilla Minecraft. To download the Slime Compass mod, visit http://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/ljpv6/sure_ill_mod_that_for_you_slime_compass/

Thanks for reading. Be sure to follow Farming Melons for the latest news on Minecraft!

Feature Freeze

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 21:33:13 -0400

Today is October 18th, or, more accurately, the official day of the Minecraft feature freeze. What is the feature freeze, you may ask? The feature freeze has been planned by Notch and Jeb for over a month. As of today, there will be no updates to Minecraft until Minecon. That means that 1.9 won’t officially be released for an entire month!

With all of the updates and prereleases that have been coming out lately, it’s been difficult for mod coders, map designers, and texture pack makers to keep their creations compatible and updated. Thanks to the feature freeze, there will be plenty of time for these creators to catch up. Perhaps the ever- popular Aether mod will be updated to 1.8, or even the 1.9 prereleases!

Now that features are frozen, the community can recover from the rapid updates that Notch and Jeb have been belting out lately.

Aside from the community, the feature freeze gives us time to anticipate what will be coming in 1.9 and ahead. Currently, the newest glimpse into Minecraft’s future is 1.9 Pre4. This release contains a lot of features which can really give us insight into what Notch and Jeb have planned.

NPCs

Notch has planned to add NPCs to the game since Alpha, but it was only in 1.8 that we got to see the plan take action: 1.8 brought naturally generated villages. With the 1.9 prereleases, there came the first NPCs. Each NPC wore a different color robe to represent its job in the town: Farmer, butcher, librarian, blacksmith, and villager. Currently, they won’t actually do their jobs. Their AI is very limited, and they won’t defend themselves if you attack them. However, Notch has said that he wants them to either be hostile or passive based on the player’s decisions. Also, Notch firmly believes that the NPCs should not talk. Keeping the NPCs mute will help keep Minecraft to its original feel, but it also leaves some gameplay issues when it comes to trade, quests, or anything else that NPCs may be involved with. Many people have suggested using pictographs to demonstrate ideas. Whether Notch plans to use this idea or not is unknown.

The End

The newest 1.9 prerelease (1.9 Pre4) introduced something that no one quite expected: The End dimension. The End dimension uses Notch’s skylands terrain generation, while replacing all blocks with the new White Stone. There are huge obsidian spikes across the landscape, and Endermen everywhere. While it isn’t currently obtainable without mods, there is also the new mob; the Ender Dragon. The Ender Dragon is speculated to be the first ever boss mob of Minecraft. While these Ender Dragons will only spawn in The End, Notch plans to add Red Dragons to the overworld.

Golems

While it isn’t discussed often, golems have a lot of potential. Notch has said that he may add more craftable “helper” mobs to the game. Also, after releasing 1.9 Pre1, he decided that more in- world crafting(Placing blocks on the ground instead of on a crafting grid) should be included in future updates.

Magic

While magic still needs some tweaking, there’s still a lot to work with. Magic potions are made using brewing stands. By brewing special ingredients together, you can create potions that will heal you, give you extra strength, speed, and more. There are also many potions that have negative effects, such as poison and instant harm. In 1.9 Pre4, however, these potions are finally given a use. By brewing gunpowder into any potion, you recieve a splash potion. When you right click with one of these, instead of consuming it, you’ll throw it(similar to the way you throw eggs or snowballs). Magic potions(and item enchantments) have a lot of potential to be a major aspect of the game.

With the feature freeze, Minecraft’s community is left to flourish, grow, and wonder: What will come next?

1.9 Pre4- Part 2: Item Enchantment

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 12:34:16 -0400

Item enchantment was originally introduced in 1.9 Pre3. However, enchanting an item would only add the word “Enchanted!” to the item’s tooltip. Other than that(and a glowing animation), enchanting items was completely useless. However, with the introduction of 1.9 Pre4, players are able to put item enchantment to good use.

An enchantment table is crafted with diamonds, obsidian, and a book. Once you have placed the enchantment table, you can right- click on it to view its gui. The gui includes one item slot. This slot is used to store the item you wish to enchant. Currently, only tools and armor can be enchanted.

When you have placed an item into the enchantment slot, you will see three spells written in the standard galactic alphabet. Luckily, you don’t need to be able to read the galactic alphabet; as the names are completely random. You choose spells without quite knowing what they do. If you have enough experience levels, you will be able to spend them and enchant your item! Generally, spells that cost more experience yield better rewards. Other than that, there’s no real way to know for sure which enchantments your item will get.

If you happen to have a high experience level and want to further enchant your items, it may be useful to know that placing bookcases around your enchantment table will increase the value of the spells! The more surrounding bookcases, the better enchantments, the higher the cost. Once you’ve enchanted an item, its tooltip will include the names and tiers of any enchantments the item has. To view all of the possible enchantments, Click here.

Item enchantment definitely has potential. Hopefully, Notch will implement alternate ways to get experience points, other than killing. Be sure to check back with Farming Melons. We’ll keep you updated with more information as it comes!

1.9 Pre4- Part 1: The End

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 21:32:56 -0400

Recently, Mojang released the fourth installment of the 1.9 prerelease. This prerelease is a very interesting window into Notch’s plans for the future of Minecraft. First of all, this prerelease introduces a new dimension: The End. Portals to The End aren’t created similarly to the way Nether portals (or modded Aether portals) are. Instead, you must find a portal inside a stronghold.

In previous releases, strongholds were nearly impossible to find. If you happened to find one, then the only rewards you could possibly hope to obtain were some decorative mossy bricks or an apple. However, strongholds have a nearly completely redone in this prerelease. While they are still rare, they aren’t as hard to find because of a new stronghold- locating item: The Eye of Ender.

The Eye of Ender is crafted by combining an Ender Pearl with Blaze powder (Blaze powder is crafted from a a blaze rod). Similar to Ender Pearls, the Eye of Ender can be thrown. However, the Eye of Ender has different properties. Once thrown, the Eye of Ender will fly towards the nearest stronghold. After it has gone a certain distance, it will hover in the air for a bit, then drop down so that you can pick it up and repeat the process until you have found a stronghold. Occasionally, they Eye of Ender will disappear instead of dropping, so it’s best to have a few of them prepared if you’re going on a stronghold- finding expedition.

Strongholds themselves are now generated differently as well. Now many of them contain a new room.

This new room contains a silverfish spawner, and, more importantly, a portal to The End. When you first enter the room, the portal won’t be complete; each block that makes up the portal requires an Eye of Ender to be put in it. Once each slot has been filled, the Ender Portal will activate.

By jumping into this void- like portal, you will instantly be transported into The End dimension.

The End is a vast floating island in which Endermen are abundant. The landscape is made up of White Stone hills and Obsidian towers. The End is very appropriately named, seeing as there is no way back to the overworld aside from dying. Fortunately, while there is currently no way to leave The End, there is also currently no reason to go to The End. The only unique block in The End is the white stone which the terrain is made up of, which has the exact same properties as stone.
While Ender Dragons do not currently spawn in The End, Notch has programmed them in, and they can be spawned by using mods.

Notch plans to have only one Ender Dragon within The End dimension, and it’s likely for this dragon to be a boss monster of sorts. The Ender Dragon is capable of flying around and destroying any blocks that get in its way. Because of its destructive habits, Notch has stated that he will not have Ender Dragons in the overworld. However, Notch has plans for Red Dragons to spawn in the overworld. These dragons will most likely be less destructive.

The End definitely has potential. It’s likely that it could be closely linked with the planned “Win Game” achievement. Be sure to check back with Farming Melons; we’ll keep you updated with information as it comes.

1.9 News- Item Enchantment (Part II)

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 15:41:44 -0400

As you may know, Notch has been working on a new magical aspect of Minecraft, being item enchantments. Not much has been revealed. We know that items are enchanted through an enchantment table, which will most likely be crafted using diamonds, cobblestone, and a book.

When you enchant an item, you open the book from your enchantment table, pick a random spell(without knowing what it will do), and enchant an item at the cost of some experience points. There are three tiers of enchantment, according to Notch.

When items are enchanted, they become glossy. While the above image is currently the only image available of the glossy effect, we can imply that the animation may be very similar to that of the golden apple in 1.9 pre 2. Notch also posted a screenshot of the enchantment table’s GUI.

First of all, the text is going to be written in English, not the odd symbols you see here. The symbols are actually called “Intergalactic Code.” Within a few hours of Notch posting the screenshot, someone decoded it. Aside from that, we can see that below the inventory, there is a number display of the character’s experience level. The green text matches the numbers next to the spell titles, so we can assume that your experience levels will directly go towards any items you enchant.

Also, while on the topic of magic, Jeb tweeted earlier “Not even a new GUI could save the potion brewing system. I need new inspiration”. Thanks to this tweet, you can pretty much disregard any information that you may have heard about Jeb’s cauldrons and brewing stands.

Magic potions and enchantment are sure to be an interesting and intuitive addition to the game! Be sure to check back with FarmingMelons; we’ll keep you updated with more information as it comes!

Animal Breeding Tips

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 10:19:15 -0400

With the introduction of animal breeding in 1.9 Pre 2, it’s useful to know what kinds of animals are the best to breed.

Chicken breeding, which was formerly the only type of breeding (due to their eggs) is no longer very effective, because chickens rarely drop eggs, and eggs will only spawn chickens 1/8 of the time. However, having a chicken coop will give you a supply of feathers which can be used for arrows. So, while a chicken coop isn’t necessarily the best for a main source of food, it’s still useful to make one if you have extra time and need extra arrows.

Pigs, on the other hand, are bred via wheat. Once you have an excessive amount of pigs, you can kill them and receive porkchops, which will heal more health than chicken. Unfortunately, porkchops are the only byproduct of the pig. Unlike the chicken, you won’t get any bonuses. Pigs will drop Between 0 and 2 porkchops on death.

Cows are one of the most efficient species to breed. Killing a cow will give you beef, which will heal as much as a porkchop. However, the cow will drop between 1 and 3 beef, making meat collection significantly more efficient. Also, cows drop 0-2 leather on death, which can be used to make armor! Cows can be milked, as well, making them necessary to have a renewable supply of cake.

While it may be hard to find, the Mooshroom is by far the most efficient animal to breed. Mooshrooms are only found in the rare mushroom biomes. However, if you find one of these biomes and lure a Mooshroom back home, you’ll have more food than you’ll ever need. Like the cow, it will drop 1-3 beef on death and 0-2 leather. However, you can milk the Mooshrooms with a bowl to collect mushroom stew. Also, shearing a Mooshroom will drop 2-5 red mushrooms. With 4 products, the Mooshroom is the most effective animal to breed.

As breeding is changed and shaped by Notch, some of these statistics may change. be sure to check back for all the newest information!

1.9 Update News- Magic Potions, Item Enchantment!

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 18:46:25 -0400

Recently, Jeb has been working on potions and magic. Originally, he planned to have potions be brewed within a cauldron. However, the GUI for the cauldron ended up not being user- friendly. Instead, he has decided to go with “brewing stands”.

There are glass containers hanging from hooks on the brewing stand. In the middle is what appears to be a blaze rod! Finally, giving some of the new useless items uses!

Notch also released some new information about magic today! He’s working on Item Enchanters. While it isn’t clear which items you can enchant, Notch has stated that enchanting items costs experience points, and that there are 3 tiers of enchantment. Notch said that enchanting works by opening a magical book, choosing a spell without knowing what it will do, and poof! Magic! This is definitely an interesting take on spells and magic. It adds to the discovery aspects of Minecraft! From the image Notch posted, we can tell that the enchanter is going to give a new use to diamonds, and also a new use for books!

While we don’t know very much about how potions will be brewed and items will be enchanted yet, the magic in 1.9 is sure to add some interesting features to the game! Be sure to check back, we’ll bring you information as it comes!

1.9 Prerelease II Is out!!

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:29:12 -0400

As promised, Mojang has released the second prerelease of 1.9 today. The update includes many new features; some anticipated, some completely new.

Breeding

Breeding was something that Notch had planned working on for a while. In 1.8, he made it so that animals wouldn’t despawn or respawn. If you kill all of the animals in your area, you’re just out of luck. Thankfully, with this update, you can breed animals. Notch decided to go against his original idea of having all animals come from eggs. Instead, you feed animals wheat, which puts them into “love mode”.

If two animals of the same species are in love mode, they will walk torwards each other awkwardly, and then a full- grown animal will appear next to them. However, Notch has confirmed that they will make baby animals in 1.9. Also in this prerelease, animals will follow you when you are holding wheat in your hand. This is very helpful for rounding up animals into pens.

Music Discs

Although this is a minor update, it is something that has been long- awaited! Minecraft now has a lot more options for music disks! Currently, the original two discs, (“Cat” and “13”) are legitimately obtainable. However, it is likely that the new disks will be linked to quests or challenges! Below is a list of the new disks:

“Blocks”

“Chirp”

“Far”

“Mall”

“Mellohi”

“Stal”

“Strad”

“Ward”

“11”

Together, the tracks add about 40 minutes of music to Minecraft. With so many records, jukeboxes may be more widely used in the future!

Endermen

Endermen can now take more damage. When they come in contact with water, they will immediately teleport away, making water traps less effective. The ender pearls which they drop can now be thrown, just like eggs and snowballs. The player will teleport to where the ender pearl impacts the ground, at the cost of fall damage. Ender pearls are also no longer stackable to 64. Instead, they stack to 16(like eggs and snowballs).

The Blaze

In the original prerelease of 1.9, the blaze rod was a completely useless item that was occasionally dropped by the blaze when killed. While this prerelease doesn’t add too much to blaze rods, it does bring something noteworthy. First of all, by putting a single blaze rod into your crafting table, you will receive two “Blaze Powder”. (). Blaze powder can be crafted together with a slimeball to make “Magma Cream” (). Currently, none of these items have any actual uses. It is very likely, however, that they will be used once potions are craftable.

Potions

While potions aren’t fully implemented yet, there are some features in this prerelease worth mentioning. First of all, the glass bottles are crafted by putting three glass blocks in a V shape on your workbench. “Spider Eyes” were added in this release. They are dropped by spiders and cave spiders. You can eat spider eyes, but they will posion you and will only refill . When crafted together with sugar and a brown mushroom, the spider eye will become a fermented spider eye(), which is inedible and currently useless. Also, when effected by magic, there will be a notification while on your inventory screen showing what spell you’re under and how much longer you’ll be affected.

That’s pretty much all there is to the new prerelease, other than a few minor graphical updates. To download the new release, click the link in Jeb’s tweet: http://twitter.com/#!/jeb_/status/119395358135693312 . As we learn more about this prerelease and future releases, we’ll keep you posted. be sure to check back!

Also, a side note- FarmingMelons has just reached 64 followers! That’s a full stack!

The Future Of Minecraft's Endermen

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:51:13 -0400

Endermen were one of the most anticipated features of 1.8. They appeared to be a terrifying, fast, shadowy mob that was dangerous and yielded valuable drops.

However, come 1.8, the Endermen became big jokes. They were tall unwieldy creatures who couldn’t fit into many houses. They would move blocks at random; making them more annoying than they were scary. They took damage from water, fire, lava, rain, and sunlight. They were as weak as a zombie. They dropped useless Ender Pearls(instead of the diamond drops that were revealed at PAX). However, as of 1.9, this is all going to change.

1. Ender Pearls

First of all, Ender Pearls are no longer useless. As you may know, Notch has made them throwable. When you throw an Ender Pearl, you’ll teleport to where it landed. However, there will be some nerfing of the feature. The specifics have not been released as of yet.

2. Picking up blocks

The fact that Endermen can pick up any block and move it freely leads to hideous- looking worlds full of griefing. Thankfully, 1.9 changes this. As of the prerelease, Endermen can only pick up a few naturally- occurring blocks. Better yet, logs are not included in this list! No longer will you walk through forests of trees with one block missing from the middle!

3. New Levels of Difficulty

Earlier today, Notch tweeted “Endermen suck because they’re annoying, and because I nerfed them and made them too easy. I shall fix this.” This tweet leads a lot of room for interpretation, but we can surely expect some challenges while fighting Endermen in the future. Perhaps their health will be raised, or they will deal more damage!

4. Beyond 1.9

Notch has mentioned that someday, he wants Endermen to move blocks into formations such as crop circles. This would make a lot more sense, and they would no longer be griefing.

Also, while it has not been confirmed, it’s very likely that Notch will fix the SMP bug which will allow you to look directly at an Enderman without repercussions.

Currently, this is all we know about the future of Endermen. It’s definitely going to be interesting to see Notch transform these weak griefers into terrifying monsters! Be sure to check back, we’ll post more information as it comes!

1.9 News- Tool Repairs, Ender Pearl Uses, More!

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 17:28:00 -0400

Today has been quite an eventful day on Notch’s twitter page; he’s revealed a lot about the upcoming update.

1.9 Prerelease 2

Notch has stated that “The plan now is to do another pre release of 1.9 this week.” The new prerelease will include item breeding(But no baby animals yet) and some new features listed below.

Ender Pearls

Today, Notch revealed that Ender Pearls would have a unique ability. They can be thrown like eggs and snowballs. Once the pearl impacts the ground, the player teleports to its location. This idea was originally suggested by isJesus via reddit. Notch commented on the thread, saying “We love the idea, it makes perfect sense! It needs to be balanced, though, to prevent a pile of pearls from becoming super op. We’ll probably do some game designing on Monday.” It looks like we can expect Ender Pearls to be throwable means of teleportation, along with a bit of nerfing.

Tool Repairs

Notch also revealed that he was working on a long- due feature: Repairing tools. Repairing tools will be as simple as crafting two damaged tools together. Assuming they are both the same type of tool, they will output a new tool with more remaining uses than both of the tools combined! Notch gave an example of how his formula will work: “If item 1 has 10 uses left, and item 2 has 10 uses left, you’ll end up with something like 25 uses in the final product.” The new feature is great for saving inventory space and maximizing mining uses! Hopefully, repairing will also be implemented for armor.

1.9 Prerelease 2 is certainly going to have some interesting features! Be sure to check back, we’ll keep you updated with more information as it comes! Also, if you haven’t seen it already, check out our article regarding what Jeb’s been up to today!

Minecraft 1.9 News- Magic: Part II

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 16:38:34 -0400

Yesterday, I posted an article revealing some of Minecraft’s source code which hinted towards magic being implemented in the game. Today, Jeb revealed quite a bit of information confirming that magic will indeed be in the game.

“This will probably ->NOT<- be included in Beta 1.9”, says Jeb as he posts this image. This image contains some very interesting information. First of all, we can see many abilities on the side which (presumably) can be upgraded. This is most likely what we can expect once experience points are put to use. Jeb has already confirmed that there will be upgrades linked to experience points. From this image, we can see five skills: Speed, Strength, Jumping (Most likely jump height), Resistance, and underwater breathing. Next to some of the skills are roman numerals, which most likely represent which level you’ve upgraded that skill to. Beneath the skill titles are numbers which, based on their format, are either ratios or times. It is fairly likely that they are times. Perhaps these times could be cooldown times for upgrades, preventing players from maxing out a particular skill in small amounts of time.

Another theory is that these may be potions. The times are counting down, and when the times reach zero, you lose that ability. The following image(taken from the source code of 1.9 Pre) shows support that many of these skills may involve potions.

While it is unclear if the abilities are related to experience, magic, or both, one thing is for sure. Jeb has confirmed that he is currently working on magic. Earlier today, he tweeted the following:

The reason why I don’t think the potion effects will be in 1.9 is because there’s not enough time to add the brewing system

We now know that the magic system is going to involve brewing the potions. That would explain the glass container that was in Jeb’s picture. Implementing brewing potions is definitely going to be interesting. Jeb even tweeted today that he was working on implementing the blindness potion! While potions won’t be in 1.9, we can still anticipate more interesting battles in the future. Be sure to check back, we’ll keep you updated with information as it comes!

Side note: The second prerelease of 1.9 has been confirmed to release this week