Hi gang! Have you heard the news already? In a few days from now (time of writing) EMC will be upgraded to the latest version: Minecraft 1.12! So while I was on my LAN server earlier it got me thinking a bit... What a road we've had so far with this thing called Minecraft. But... just what exactly happened back then? So I figured.. before hopping back online, lets take a strawl through memory lane. My memory lane though: I started playing Minecraft on 1.7. And that's also the version I was on when I came to the Empire. Therefor I'm going to start here. Also: I'm going to cover a lot, but I won't go into every little bit of detail. This is supposed to be a fun (light) post so I'm only going to cover global (yet interesting) details. Let's begin! 1.8 - The bountiful update Many players only think back of 1.9 when you mention controversy and Minecraft, but 1.8 also have controversy written all over it. The first releases were basically unplayable for most players. 2 FPS? And then came OptiFine.... But eventually things worked out and we got a lot of cool stuff in return. Let's look back! The most notable thing which 1.8 gave us (in my opinion!) were ocean monuments. There were fish in Minecraft, and not those invisible creatures you could never see but only get with a fishing rod! Of course these fish also had your number But with the monument also came the opportunity to gain your hands on tons of new blocks. That is... After you killed the elder guardians, because if you didn't they'd force your hand by taking away your mining abilities (Mining fatigue). But other than that: sponges anyone? Many players (myself included!) did not like this change at first but I have to admit that looking back sponges were way overpowered ("OP"). Of course they also weren't officially in the game (but I still had 2 on my previous server ). And now they were! A bit nerfed but still very much usable, IF... if you knew how to properly use them (I liked that take a lot, know your tools...). And well, the new stone variants were also cool; those really helped you get some building variety in your mining base early into the game. And there's more.. Banners are still awesome at this very date, and those slime blocks? Many redstone contraptions probably won't run anymore without them. History sure left an imprint wouldn't you agree? All thanks to 1.8. This is also the version which introduced spectator mode. In case you didn't know about this: you'll be turned into a floating head and you can basically clip through the whole world and get a broader overview of it. For obvious reasons the screenshot above was made this way. It's not something you'll easily get to enjoy on the Empire, but it's still very much awesome. If you enjoy creative mode you need to know about this one... Why? That brings us to our next chapter: 1.9 - The combat update This is the update which made players easily forget about all the horrors we had to go through with 1.8. Because... oh my lord.. It totally changed the way we fight mobs! From this point on you were no longer able to kill mobs by drilling into your mouse buttons but you actually had to time your attacks for the best results. Thing is: most players focus on the attack and how this ruined Minecraft according to them (ey! we're all entitled to our own opinion, let's respect that, ok?) but I personally can't help wonder if some players totally overlooked the defensive side. We now also got a shield which could protect us from a lot of damage. Skeletons firing arrows? Let us have it, nothing our shield can't shield us from But there's honestly so much more here... We got a completely revamped End. At last we got to learn where the Endermen lived. As soon as you defeated the dragon (which could now be respawned for even more combat, thanks to the craftable End crystals) then the end islands await... Also gaining access to end cities which contained yet another item which, according to some, ruined Minecraft: the Elytra. Now it wasn't only the admins who could fly. Move over admins, here come the n00bs! (as soon as we find a good place to jump down from... (I hope you guys can forgive me for the little enhanced dramatics ) But of course we had more... Many players who loved Creative mode easily found their way into spectator mode. This was the mode to use to gain access to areas which you really wanted to leave sealed off for regular players. Mojang noticed, and they acted: F3-n was now a thing: toggle between the two modes. For obvious reasons I know this keyboard shortcut by heart now And of course my overall favorite block: purpur! Do you know of any stone-like block (other than wood) which you can grow yourself? Right But let's also not forget about the command block enhancements. This was also when we were introduced to chain comand blocks (to ensure that more commands would be executed after the main command) as well as repeating command blocks: these continuously checked for things and acted when needed. The advantages between these and manual redstone clocks? Too much to tell: the lag drastically decreased. 1.10 - The frostburn update What came first: the igloo or the polar bear? Igloo's I didn't mention them in my last chapter, but those came first. And when 1.10 came out we got a guardian: the polar bear. I love polar bears because they can actually teach you something valuable: when alone a polar bear is neutral. On the Empire you can even eggify it. But beware when there's a young cub nearby.. Because if there is then polar bears will immediately consider you a threat to their offspring and come right at you. I. LOVE. THIS. Have you ever read stories about crows or swans (be very carefull around them!) or other birds suddenly attacking people just out of the blue? Wake up call: nothing out of the blue. They claimed that area and you can bet that some youngsters are nearby. Unlike most modern human parents (yes, this is a hidden sneer) animal parents still care greatly for their children themselves and will fend you off with everything they got because... you shall not approach the young ones! Who said Minecraft couldn't teach you something about the real world? Of course we got more Did you know the observer structure block was actually introduced with the 1.9 update? I didn't And it's my favorite creative/admin block too! (I don't mean to brag, but I do like to think that I pretty much mastered its usage by now: the 32x32x32 limit does not apply to me anymore (spam: here's why)). Other than that we also got magma, bone blocks (which were also used to generate fossils which can be found across the world), we could make red nether brick blocks (also one of my favorites) and of course nether wart blocks. But I kind of dislike those because you never get the warts back. And the block itself.. I wouldn't be using one to build something anytime soon Of course there's even more.. Thought that skeletons & zombies always burn up when facing he sun? Here's the Husk and Stray for you, happy hunting 1.11(.2) - The exploration update This is where we're at now and where my story finishes. Did you ever have issues finding a ocean monument? Heck... what about the rare (and newly introduced) woodland mansion? Often found deeply buried in a roofed forest: the mansion where the illagers live: these guys hate both their villager brethren as well as you! Have no fear: the map makers are here . Villagers (cartographers) now sometimes sell maps, which will lead you straight towards an ocean monument or a woodland mansion (depending on the map you bought). Of course such a journey can still take you days to reach the outcome. So what else did we get? Shulker... Llama's! We got llamas, found in hills and mountain ranges, you can catch one (lead them) and then you'll lead a whole herd because llama's love to play follow the leader, and they're an alt users dream Place an alt on top, lead the llama (and others) along and enjoy the magic Of course also shulker boxes. Those which would change mining forever (but also made your losses greater when you died with a few of them on you). And there you go! Shell's trip into memory lane. I know I left stuff out, trust me Care to complete me? What was your favorite feature of one of these particular updates? Feel free to share!
I'll sooner or later also tell the things I rember from previous mincraft updates, I bought this account shortly after 1.2 I beleve, so I've got a lot to talk About...
As I said I would do, here is everything I remember form all the minecraft updates: There we go.... (I haven't got any screenshots since the computter I worked on during all thease days crashed, and I never thought to move all my screenshots over, only my worlds) I think I have been playing since minecraft bètha, but The first update I recall was the 1.4.2 I was a member of the empire minecraft for two moths at that time, and beacons got introduced... (alongside with the wither, nether stars, witches, bats, carrots potatoes avils wooden buttons, flower potsm and you won't beleve it, but it also was the command block update... Of corse, you can imagine, I was really quite exited when I saw all those new features, but there was one feature in peticular I was really quite exited about, you guessed it right, it were the carots on sticks Really, as soon as I saw that was a thing, I bought all saddles I could imagine and bread as much pig as I possibly could. Then, I took all my stone (!) shovels and dug out a hole in my res at a place the was space to put it, A gigantic race track for people on pigs (I'm planning on making one of those agian, but than bigger and using redstone, you'll see a thread come up once I need some help ) build out of melon blocks farmed in my really nice manual farms... (nobodey ever showed up to play it with me though, sadly) One other thing I can remember is a player those days called X_I_LIKE_A_PIG_X selling beacons the day after the update, remeber, you had to do the same thing to get one, and having more than ten to sell in the first day, really, wow... Next update I recall, the 1..5 what else would it be, The redstone update, and really the redstone update for me, it was the update I started redstoning in, of corse, I was really bad at the time (I was bairly able to make a proper light switch) I actually can't recal doing anything on EMC, but that, I think, mostly was because I those days was really quite busy starting to do thing in creative mode, I do remember that I those days we really active at a world called "Huizen" (houses) those days. (I had only half an hour gaming time a day due to rules my mother gave me, so really active wasn't that much) and I remember sarting messing around with automatic day/night switches at the time remember there was no reversed mode (or I just didn't know it was there) so I had to reverse all the redstone signals, easy today, really hard for eleven year old me... Due to the fact that I had such little time (and I also wanted everything to be aestethincly pleasing) I have spent like two moths doing this on all the houses I had at that world... This update is the first update I reacall I actually knew there was an update happening. (for all the others I just checked my creative menu and thought "mhm, what does that do?") But now I know, there was an update happening, and not just a small one, a really big update, "The horse update" The first thing I remember from this update is having the indicatus saltar and valens, Tom and Owen (a person Tom and I used to play with) started hoarding them, I really didn't know what was going on and started doing the thing I found interesting, like, finding out if I could blow horses up with TNT (in singleplayer) (you can) and other thing like that I did those days when playing minecraft. some more practical things I did was going through the empire minecraft wastelands and trying to find dungon chests with horse armour in them. (to die and lose them all) I also remember from this update was that the block of coal was added, I remember that becuase someone from SMP9 builded a full res piramid with them, wich I found really insane those days... The last thing I remember was that you now was able to rename a mob "grumm" to make it go upside down (you can blow them up with TNT btw) Now it's time for "the update that changed the world" and form all thease updates I found this one the least exiting, for me it still is the "acacia and dark oak" update since that were the only things I used, I was gold supporter at the time (I beleve) and I was woring on this structure here: And as you can see, 1: even though I loved it, I was a terrible builder at the time; 2: I used a little bit of dark oak wood, actually, This is the first build I ever made using dark oak or acacia wood, and this is the first screenshot that's at the PC I'm currnetly woring at, It's mde 5 months after I finished that build ( 3-3-2014 ) But I really love the metaphor it has...
That was a nice trip indeed! At first I thought "Those updates are so recent they probably won't bring back any memories.", but I was wrong! Some of these updates were indeed developed quite some time ago already. For 1.8, I explored an ocean monument, but I didn't like it all too much, probably as I wasn't well prepared against the darkness and the mining fatigue. I believe in 1.8 the movable world border got introduced, which was quite big for us: it was very nice to use in UHC's, which we hosted back then. From 1.9, I mostly recall the huge controversies. I also recall looking forward to organising a UHC utilising the new combat mechanics: unfortunately, we never got to it, as too many guys were unavailable, and we never had another UHC again. When end cities were added for 1.10, I was on vacation, but I had access to a laptop, and I looked for one for a long while. Eventually I did find one, and exploring it was nice. Of 1.11 I haven't played too much myself, but I do remember watching Jeb reveal the upcoming changes. Shulker boxes, those totem thingies, new mobs, a new, huge structure, treasure maps... quite some cool stuff was to be shown there! So yeah, even though I kind of feel like I haven't really played Minecraft since 1.5 or 1.6 or so, I have still got quite some memories. Updates stay exciting to me, even after so many years!
