History VideoGame / Minecraft

* Combat. ''Beta'' contains a number of different AI-controlled monsters which will attack you on sight, forcing you to run or fight. Once defeated, they drop various valuable resources, as well as experience orbs which the player can collect and level up, becoming stronger. Generally the AI is poor, and direct unmodded combat is rather limited, consisting of either using a sword or a bow; however, [[CriticalHit critical hits]] and over-charged bow shots are possible, and there are plans to expand combat further. The difficulty can be adjusted to make monsters more or less powerful. The [[EasierThanEasy "peaceful"]] setting removes monsters altogether. Conversely, the [[HarderThanHard "hardcore"]] setting locks your world onto the hardest difficulty and doesn't let you respawn, so you have to start a new world if you die.

* Farming. There are a number of different types of plants and animals that can be farmed for resources. Trees can be grown for wood, a common building material, and for charcoal, used to cook food and smelt ore. Sugar cane can be grown for sugar or paper. Cacti can be grown for defensive purposes and dye production. Wheat, mushrooms, and watermelons can be grown for food. Pumpkins can be grown to make light sources, decorative blocks, and protection against Endermen. Nether wart can be grown as an important potion ingredient. Chickens lay a few eggs every day. Cows can provide milk. Sheep produce wool, used for decoration. Soil can be tilled with a hoe tool, allowing players to grow wheat, pumpkins, and watermelons.
* Combat. ''Beta'' contains a number of different AI-controlled monsters which will attack you on sight, forcing you to run or fight. Once defeated, they drop various valuable resources, as well as experience orbs which the player can collect and level up, becoming stronger. Generally the AI is poor, and direct unmodded combat is rather limited, consisting of either using a sword or a bow; however, [[CriticalHit critical hits]] and over-charged bow shots are possible, and there are plans to expand combat further. The difficulty can be adjusted to make monsters more or less powerful. The [[EasierThanEasy "peaceful"]] setting removes monsters altogether. Conversely, the upcoming [[HarderThanHard "hardcore"]] setting locks your world onto the hardest difficulty and doesn't let you respawn, so you have to start a new world if you die.

* Construction. This is the part of the game that has the most in common with ''Classic,'' described above. You take the stone and other materials you get from mining, and build houses, towers, or any other structure that take your fancy. Given that Minecraft's environment is cube based, this forces a bit of creativity for players looking to build something other than "giant cube #258". However, due to the large number of different blocks, and the fact that players can dye wool blocks a variety of colorful hues, players can get very creative indeed.
* Engineering. Minecraft has a substance called "redstone". Redstone dust, when placed by the player, manifests as circuit-line trails that are able to carry signals. The redstone system is essentially an emulation of RealLife non-integrated electronic circuits, which you can use to control the behaviour of certain blocks and items in the world. For example, a player can wire a pressure-activated plate to trigger a locked door to open, or can wire an on/off switch to a floodgate that allows them to turn a waterfall on and off like a light.
* Exploration. Minecraft's world, and its various landscape and "biomes", are procedurally generated as the players ventures into unexplored areas. Thus, the map is, for all practical purposes, infinite (though it's often said that, due to technical limitations, the engine would crap out at around 8 times the surface area of Earth). Additionally, players are eventually able to craft their own PortalNetwork of {{Cool Gate}}s, (apparently inspired by the Wheel of Time series) which allow players to travel throughout the world at eight times the normal rate, [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace if you don't mind the risks]]. Of course, some people build portals just to explore [[FireAndBrimstoneHell the "Nether"]], which contains several unique resources like netherrack, a strange mineral that can burn forever, and glowstone, which is a useful light source.
* Farming. There are a number of different types of plants and animals that can be farmed for resources. Trees can be grown for wood, a common building material, and for charcoal, used to cook food and smelt ore. Sugar cane can be grown for sugar or paper. Cacti can be grown for defensive purposes and dye production. Wheat, mushrooms, and watermelons can be grown for food. Pumpkins can be grown to make light sources, decorative blocks, and protection against Endermen. Chickens lay a few eggs every day. Cows can provide milk. Sheep produce wool, used for decoration. Soil can be tilled with a hoe tool, allowing players to grow wheat, pumpkins, and watermelons.

* SavageSetpiece: The Zombie Pigman will even walk right up to you ''and look at you'' without attacking. When you attack him, not only does he attack full-on with his sword, but any other Pigmen in range come in swinging.

* {{Snowlems}}: You can build a golem out of snow with a jack-o-lantern for a head. It'll wander around, spreading snow on the ground. It also throws snowballs at nearby monsters. The snowballs don't deal any damage directly (except for some nether mobs), but they'll knock the monster back and distract it, which you can use to your advantage whether you're trying to fight or flee.

** [[http://twitter.com/#!/notch/status/39722654491611136 1.8 adds a Hunger Meter]] which influences health regeneration and dashing.

* VideoGameCaringPotential: Tamed wolves. They'll kill for you. They'll die for you. It's in your best interest to keep their health up.

* WeirdMoon: All squarish, always comes up when the sun goes down and vice versa and always at full phase.

* VideoGameCaringPotential: Tamed wolves.

** Using tinder to clear leaves can result in massive forest fires.

* VideoGameCrueltyPunishment: Go ahead and go on an animal killing spree. While there's no direct punishment for this, animals will spawn so rarely that they're nonexistient. No more pork chops for you!

** The yellow text on the main screen often says things like: [[WillWright Reticulating splines,]] [[{{Doom}} MAP11 has two name!]], [[TheEnigmaOfAmigaraFault Drr... Drr... Drr...]], [[{{Valve}} Not on steam!]], [[{{Persona4}} Switches and ores!]], [[StarWars That's not a moon!]], [[FamilyGuy Peter Griffin!]], among many other things. Also, Survival Test used to display "did you know..." trivia at the bottom.

* {{Snowlems}}

* Combat. ''Beta'' contains a number of different AI-controlled monsters which can be fought. Once defeated, they drop various resources, as well as experience orbs which the player can collect and level up, becoming stronger. Generally the AI is poor, and direct unmodded combat is rather limited, consisting of either using a sword or a bow; however, [[CriticalHit critical hits]] and over-charged bow shots are possible, and there are plans to expand combat further. The difficulty can be adjusted to make monsters more or less powerful. The [[EasierThanEasy "peaceful"]] setting removes monsters altogether. Conversely, the upcoming [[HarderThanHard "hardcore"]] setting locks your world onto the hardest difficulty and doesn't let you respawn, so you have to start a new world if you die.

* PowerCreepPowerSeep: The Endermen are going through a phase of this. Notch claims he nerfed them before the official 1.8 release, and now complains that they're too easy, so the next major update will give their AI an overhaul and remove their vulnerability to sunlight.

** The Youtube user [[http://www.youtube.com/user/kurtjmac kurtjmac]] is attempting to walk to the Far Lands. He's been at it for quite a number of hours now (if you take a look at the "Far Lands Or Bust" playlist, he started walking to the Far Lands in the 11th video.

** The [[http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Far_Lands Far Lands]] used to be an example of this. At very great distances from the origin point the game glitched out, distorting structures, preventing blocks from being placed or even staying put, generating immense lag, and all in all making the game unplayable. The game's creator said that he hadn't intended for this to happen, but left it in because he liked the idea of physics breaking down at the "edge" of an infinite map that was virtually impossible to reach without cheating. However, the terrain generator overhaul in beta version 1.8 accidentally fixed this bug.

** With the addition of Enchanting tables in update 1.9, bookshelves have jumped to this- having a bookshelf nearby whilst enchanting will increase the level of some enchantments,and if the enchanter is lucky, give the item two properties.

** Trying to use a bed in the Nether makes it explode. Not only is this funny as all hell, it's great for mining, due to the fact that's it's more powerful and less expensive than TNT.

** With the addition of Enchanting tables in update 1.9,bookshelves have jumped to this- having a bookshelf nearby whilst enchanting will increase the level of some enchantments,and if the enchanter is lucky, give the item two properties.

** A persistent bug that is particularly bad on some platforms involves randomly starting to walk in a different direction while walking while clicking. The way to fix it is by hitting that direction key. Which is the very most counter-intuitive thing to do. Cliffs and lava pools become an object of horror due to this bug.

Notable for its [[http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Version_history frequent updates]] and very involved creator, Notch. ''Beta'' will eventually move in an official release sometime around November 11th, 2011 (the date was originally confirmed, but due to [[TheElderScrollsVSkyrim some other game]] launching that day, Notch pushed it back a week). The game also exists as a mobile version for the Xperia Play, and a version for the {{Xbox 360}} is planned.

* NintendoHard:
** Beta. The /infdev/ update that first allowed the spawning of creatures would often create groups of 5 or 7 monsters ''right next to another group of 5 or 7... during all hours of the daylight!'' Simply going outside for wood was difficult. Fortunately it has been fixed.
** Minecraft is just a hard game in general. Spiders climb walls and move faster than you and can jump at you over and over again once in attack range. Skeletons attack you with an endless supply of arrows instead of melee, negating your one big advantage over other mobs, and even if you have your own bow and arrows, skeletons will strafe and jump unpredictably while still firing at you with considerable accuracy. Creepers formerly made absolutely no sound before the iconic "SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS-", can be exposed to sunlight without issue, and ''explode'' when they get within striking distance, which can easily destroy obstacles like your house's walls. Even if you manage to deal with all of that, ''at the same time'', chances are the zombies that you were momentarily ignoring are about to kill you instead, assuming you didn't already fall off a steep cliff and/or into a pool of lava because you were too focused on what you were running from and not on where you were running to. The Nether is no easier, where you have to deal with the gigantic Ghasts, which often fly out of range of your arrows while shooting fireballs at you that tear up the ground, making it harder to maneuver. The Nether's only other mob is the Zombie Pigmen, who are initially peaceful, but will rush you and slice you to pieces even in diamond armor should you attack them. There's a reason people are sorely tempted to switch to [[MercyMode Peaceful difficulty]] when they want to focus on [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin mining and crafting, which is a pretty big part of the game]].
*** Even trying to prevent monsters from spawning by surrounding your buildings with torches doesn't always work--if your projects get much larger than a building or two, the number of torches needed is ''immense.''

* EarthShatteringKaboom: Possible with enough TNT. Well, more accurately [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NQVMbhyZzg Server Crashing Kaboom]].

* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard: Skeletons will spin and shoot you with pin-point accuracy and a reaction time no human could ever achieve. Particularly obvious with the new 1.8 update, that introduced bow pull-back. The longer you hold the bow back, the more powerful the shot. Unfortunately, skeletons seem to be immune to this.

* Exploration. Minecraft's world, and its various landscape and "biomes", are procedurally generated as the players ventures into unexplored areas. Thus, the map is, for all practical purposes, infinite (though it's often said that, due to technical limitations, the engine would crap out at around 8 times the surface area of Earth). Addtionally, players are eventually able to craft their own PortalNetwork of {{Cool Gate}}s, (apparently inspired by the Wheel of Time series) which allow players to travel throughout the world at eight times the normal rate, [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace if you don't mind the risks]]. Of course, some people build portals just to explore [[FireAndBrimstoneHell the "Nether"]], which contains several unique resources like netherrack, a strange mineral that can burn forever, and glowstone, which is a useful light source.

*** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPe8nb3EV4M Here's a video of this place.]] I wonder how you get out when you're in creative mode.

** The upcoming realm known only as "The End." The sky is a featureless gray, giant obsidian-like pillars dot the otherwise featureless landscape, and giant black dragons fly above. It's also [[CaptainObvious home to Endermen]].