Text of Jeb's slides from The Future of Minecraft panel at Minecon 2013

Last year at Minecon 2012 Jeb gave a presentation about the plug-in API (see Jeb's Minecraft API slides from Minecon 2012).

This year, since there hasn't been much perceptible progress on the plug-in API, Jeb opted to fill the majority of the time with a retrospective of the Minecraft releases since Minecon 2012. Thus although the panel was called The Future of Minecraft, it was a look backward. The panel can be watched on twitch.tv starting 5:39:30 (5 hours 39 minutes and 30 seconds) in to the day's stream.

The major news came near the end, when Jeb announced that Mojang has hired two more developers to replace the two former Bukkit developers who have since left.

Here is the text from Jeb's slides:

Today's Agenda

• Minecraft updates since Minecon 2012
• Minecraft under the hood
• The new launcher
• Plug-in API news
• Other stuff

Minecraft Updates Since Minecon 2012

• 3 major releases (1.5, 1.6, 1.7)
• 6 patch releases (1.4.6 etc)
• ~49 snapshots

Minecraft Updates Since Minecon 2012

• Contributions (commits) per release:
• 1.4 -- 820
• 1.5 -- 617
• 1.6 -- 834
• 1.7 -- 1109

[In addition to the number of commits for the releases, this slide also has a graph showing lines of code (click to enlarge)]:

[Yes, you read those figures right: 600,000 lines committed, 200,000 different lines. That's a lot of code! Minecraft is now a large program.]


Minecraft 1.4.6 (and 1.4.7)

• December 2013, January 2013
• Fireworks!

Minecraft 1.5
The Redstone Update

• March 2013
• Boosted beacon, nerfed bone meal, harder skeletons, new lava texture, improved lighting on stairs, new death messages...
• Scoreboard system
• And...

Minecraft 1.5
The Redstone Update

• Nether Quartz
• Dropper and Hopper
• Redstone Comparator
• Etcetera...

Minecraft 1.6
The Horse Update

• July 2013
• New resource pack system and launcher (more about this later)
• Switch to Java 6
• Game balance changes, Block of Coal block, new clay blocks
• And...

Minecraft 1.6
Mo' Creatures' Horses

• Developed by John Olarte (DrZhark), Kent Cristian Jensen, Dan Roque

Minecraft 1.6
The Horse Update

• Hay Bales
• Leads and Name Tags
• Carpets
• Etcetera...

Minecraft 1.7
The Update that Changed the World

• October 2013
• New biomes
• Better biome placement
• Improved fishing
• New flowers
• Commands support NBT data on items and creatures
• More options for improved visual quality

Minecraft 1.7
Biomes


Minecraft 1.7
AMPLIFIED World Type


Minecraft
Under the Hood

• Resource packs
• The scorboard system
• NBT data in commands

Minecraft
Scoreboards

Minecraft
NBT Data Commands

• /summon
• /give

Minecraft
NBT Data Commands

• Pretty complex! Check YouTube for examples
• Looks like this:
• /give @p minecraft:iron_sword 1 0 {display:{Name:"Sting",Lore:["Found in a cave.","Very pointy"]}}

Minecraft
New Launcher

Minecraft
Plug-in API?


Minecraft
Plug-in API

• Michael 'Searge' Stoyke
• Minecraft Coder Pack founder
• Game developer since 2001
• Twitter: @SeargeDP

Minecraft
Plug-in API

• Ryan 'UltraMoogleMan' Holtz
• Scaleform rendering engineer
• Bat Country Entertainment
• Twitter: @TheMogMiner

Minecraft
Plug-in API?

• High hopes for 2014
• No promises :)

Minecraft
Other Stuff

• Minecraft suggestions
• http://www.reddit.com/r/MinecraftSuggestions

Minecraft
Other Stuff

• Bug reporting
• The Hopper
• https://mojang.atlassian.net
• "I added a duplicated bug report" -Polar Bear of Shame

Minecraft
Other Stuff

• twitch
• www.twitch.tv

[One-click streaming to twitch.tv integrated into Minecraft, announced earlier.]


Minecraft
Other Stuff

• Minecraft Realms

My other Minecon 2013 coverage:
Notch doesn't really mind direct ripoffs of Minecraft