The Super Duper Graphics Pack for Minecraft was announced at E3 2017. Just over two years later, it’s still never been released, and there has been little news about the update’s progress.
Back in 2017, the team sounded optimistic. “Today we’re revealing a new look for Minecraft that we’re super duper excited for you to try out, one that’s inspired by the power of Xbox One X and available this fall,” said Mojang brand director Lydia Winters on stage at Microsoft’s press conference that year. She was referring to the Super Duper Graphics Pack, an update that would allow Minecraft to run in 4K, as well as add new lighting effects and, on the Xbox One X at least, increase draw distances to make players’ worlds feel that much bigger.
While the Xbox One X came out as scheduled that fall, the Super Duper Graphics Pack did not. At MineCon later that year, the game’s studio announced it had been delayed until the following year. “There’s a lot of work to be done still and we’re not going to be ready to launch it in 2017,” the company wrote on its website. “We’ll be releasing Super Duper next year, and we’ll have more information for you here on Minecraft.net soon.”
That information never came, though, leaving people to wonder about its fate to this day. Minecraft wasn’t featured prominently at E3 last year or this year, and while the game has received major updates in the last two years, including The Life Aquatic patch that added oceanic exploration and cross-play betweenMinecraft players on Xbox One, PC, mobile, and Switch, the 4K graphics showcased two years on the Xbox One X are still missing. Notably, it’s the only first-party game on the platform that still doesn’t have any Xbox One X enhanced features.
While there’s been no official update about what’s going on with the Super Duper Graphics Pack from Microsoft (which declined to comment for this story), developers at Mojang said at a MineCon Earth panel last October that the update was proving trickier than originally thought, requiring portions of the game engine to be overhauled. This past March, community manager Helen Zbihlyj said on Twitter that there were only eight people working on the game’s new graphics engine, stressing what a monumental task this was given all of the platforms it needs to support, including VR. (Mojang did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
Given those factors, it’s not surprising that the Super Duper Graphics Pack is taking so long. If anything, the surprising part is that Microsoft decided to make such a big deal out of the new Xbox One X enhanced update so early.
While a thread about the missing graphics pack blows up on the Xbox One subreddit every so often, fans recently poked fun at a now infamous tweetmade by a user called ItsGam3r saying they planned to buy an Xbox One X just for Minecraft after seeing the trailer for the new graphics. “It’s going to be great for Minecraft fans,” the official Xbox twitter account had responded at the time. “If only he knew…” wrote someone reposting the exchange on Reddit.
“I never ended up actually buying an XB1X, lmao,” ItsGam3r told Kotaku in a DM. “Although it looked pretty sweet.”
Minecraft. You can’t spend a day browsing the internet, without some reference to the gaming phenomenon. It’s strikingly simplistic, but addictive gameplay has built thousands of careers on YouTube. It’s defined the gaming industry and is played by almost 200 million people today. It’s also sprouted many other block-inspired games, like its ownMinecraft Story Mode, Minecraft Earth, and Terraria. Even ten years after its release, when most releases would have been forgotten, it’s going strong, rivaling Fortnite. And for several reasons, in 2019, it’s only getting stronger.
No One is Ever Really Gone
Arguably, Minecraft was never really gone. With Minecraft Earth releasing in 2020, and a Minecraft movie scheduled for 2022, it’s evident that the game’s huge fanbase has remained active throughout the last decade. It is obvious by the amount of exposure the game is gaining over the internet that there’s been a recent resurgence in popularity. Interestingly, it’s also clear that the game’s population hasn’t fallen dramatically since its 2011 official release. According to Google Trends, interest in the game has been slowly degrading since its July 2013 peak. It reached its lowest point of interest fairly recently, in October 2018. But since about April of 2019, the game has rapidly increased in popularity, rivaling the rapid growth of Minecraft’s in the early 2010s, and even that of Fortnite. Is this sparking a new gaming rivalry?
But what caused this sudden spike? And why after a decade of the game’s release, is Minecraft back as the biggest current game? Like most things, we need to travel back in time to see why it lost its popularity in the first place, to see why it’s again exploding in 2019.
The Past
It’s 2013 and Minecraft has arguably just had its most popular year. Millions have been playing, and the title has taken the internet by storm. But most importantly, and dangerously, players are happy with the game. Now, because the player base was content with Minecraft, the developers, Mojang, slowed down releasing any gameplay changing updates. This is because they were afraid changes would turn players, who were happy with the game’s state, away. Cut to 2014, and the game enters a stage of no major updates for two years, coinciding with the supposed ‘Dark Ages’ of Minecraft. This is where interest in the game really began to fall. Ironically, without updates, to Mojang’s greatest fear, interest in the game began to dwindle. Despite some updates, by 2017 hundreds of Minecraft YouTuber’s decided that there time playing Minecraft was over. So the game hit rock bottom. Oof.
Over the next year, the game would continue to suffer. The majority of its player base would migrate to over to game that took the industry by surprise. Fortnite. Like Minecraft a decade ago, Fortnite took the media and game industry by storm. As this game grew in popularity, Minecraft fell far — Minecraft references across the internet were quickly replaced with Fortnite, so mining for diamonds quickly became a distant memory, and trying to find a golden SCAR became everyone’s favorite pastime. That’s the important Minecraft history behind us; so why is history repeating itself?
The Present
In 2018 the aquatic update was released, but as Fortnite was still growing its empire, it wasn’t covered as largely by the media with most content creators and publications leaning towards what everyone was currently engaged with. Skip to April 2019, and the “Village and Pillage” update was released, and since then the game has been on a massive rise in popularity, coinciding with the Google Trends explosion in Minecraft search interest. Coincidence? I think not. But why didn’t the Aquatic Update have the same effect, and bolster the player count like Village and Pillage, and why did Village and Pillage cause such a rise in popularity? The answer, no joke, is because of memes (which really do have a massive implication in gaming), Fortnite, and a hint of nostalgia.
Internet Exposure
One of the reasons for Minecraft’s decline in popularity is because of a lack of internet exposure, and the best way to gain internet exposure, as shown through the recent ‘Raid Area 51’ Facebook event, is through internet memes. After the “Village and Pillage” update, the trailer gained huge exposure as of the images and videos that would derive from it, which therefore lead to players returning to the game.
Nostalgia also had a hand to play in this. This was the first time Minecraft was exposed over the internet on this level in a few years. As a result, it led to many wanting to revisit the game to build a cobblestone house, mine diamond and defeat the Enderdragon again. Like the few years before, to revisit their childhood memories, or as a joke. And as all jokes do, they can grow and get out of hand. So more references were made, leading to more players returning, and so on.
Fortnite
The game that would replace Minecraft, would also revive it. Despite absorbing so many of its players, Fortnite would also be a catalyst to return them from its gaming empire. Since the start of 2019, Fortnite has been growing into something reminiscent of Minecraft from 2014. Some are getting bored with the game, others are treating it more as a joke, but most importantly, Fortnite is losing internet exposure . This has led to Minecraft recently regaining its old player base, overtaking Fortnite, in becoming the more popular game again. The reason that the Minecraft Aquatic Update didn’t cause this revival, is because Fortnite was at its height of popularity. So the pull to play Minecraft was far less, as people weren’t as disinterested in the badly aging Battle Royale as they were in April of 2019.
The Resurgence of Minecraft
As a result of these two factors, Minecraft is literally spiraling into the 2013 levels of popularity. The fact the game is becoming a bigger meme, YouTubers and the media have latched onto its growth. In turn, this is propelling it to larger levels of success. Pewdiepie is a key example; each episode of his Minecraft series (started 21st of June) has over 10 million views, with the first and most popular at almost 20 million. Many other content creators are following suit, reviving the games massive population, not only in-game, but over the internet, and right now is a massive trending topic on YouTube, and as a result, the rest of the internet.
Minecraft is continuing to grow as a result of its resurgence in internet communities. When will it stop? Maybe it will continue to grow and stabilize. The more likely option is that people will lose their sense of nostalgia. Like all people, become bored and move on to the next trending game, whatever that may be. But whatever that is, for now, Minecraft is back at the number one spot in gaming.
Mojang has released the final 1.14.4 with bug fixes and added features ahead of update 1.15. Find out everything new and changed in the 1.14.4 plus how to download it, here.
On Friday, Mojang released its final version (1.14.4) of the Minecraft Village and Pillage update. According to the release notes, 1.14.4 will hammer out any addition bugs and issues that have been reported, while adding a few fun features to Villagers like the ability to remember gossip. The team will now turn its efforts towards update 1.15. Update 1.15 is rumored to bring new features like functionality for smithing tables and fletching tables, as well as quality and performance improvements. A theme and release date for 1.15 has yet to be announced but more details will be revealed during MINECON 2019 in September.
Below you can find all the changes and bug fixes noted in the 1.14.4 patch notes. The update is for the Java Edition of the game. Players can download and install the new update by opening up the Minecraft Launcher and clicking play. You can find the Cross-platform server jar here and if you need to report any additional bugs, you can use the Minecraft issue tracker.
Minecraft 1.14.4 Patch Notes: Everything New & Changed
Here’s everything new and changed in the Minecraft 1.14.4 update.MOJANG
General Changes and Features Added
Performance improvements
Suspicious stew made from poppies now gives you night vision instead of speed
Added /debug report for getting more detailed information. Please include this while making bug reports about performance!
Fixed a memory leak
Removed camera pivot offset in first-person
Improved chunk loading when traveling at high speed
Fixed incorrect Pillager texture
/reload and /forceload is now available to gamemasters
function-permission-level is a new setting in server.properties that controls which commands functions have access to
Villagers now stock more items
Villagers will now remember their gossip after becoming a Zombie Villager
Improved performance of Villager pathfinding
Villagers can now work without also restocking at the same time
Gossip about players who converted a zombie villager will now last longer
The Player Activity button on the Realm screen has been removed
Villagers now wait with restocking until they have trades that need restocking
Village sieges no longer occur on mushroom islands
Mobs will no longer try to path find their way through bamboo
Pinged the human (new splash screen text)
Bug Fixes in 1.14.4
1.14.4 will be the final Village and Pillage update ahead of 1.15.MOJANG
MC-150623 – The game crashed whilst rendering overlay: Unable to fit texture
MC-156389 – Game Crashes when Shift + Command + Delete 18 characters at once on Anvil
MC-156407 – Unobtainable (speed) suspicious stew can be obtained from villagers
MC-151282 – Villager trade GUI doesn’t show the correct price on servers if trade demand is high
MC-156042 – Villager demand never goes down over time unless traded with MC-156349 – Cannot press Enter on Direct Connect Fixed debug reports in worlds with a dot in their name Fixed server freeze when Villagers fell into the void MC-145769 – Villagers aren’t shutting doors behind them MC-148613 – Aquatic mobs are not spawning / Fish spawned from buckets count towards the aquatic mob cap again MC-152908 – When a player joins a server, everything that happened during the time offline queued on connecting to the server MC-153406 – Score JSON Component Crash in items MC-153749 – Trusting Foxes attack player when self-injured MC-153852 – Concrete powder deleting waterlogged blocks when falling MC-155711 – Functions capable of running commands they shouldn’t be able to (publish, debug …) MC-156013 – Breaking Blocks “re-appear” to nudge player MC-136318 – Floatable mobs are unable to walk when in waterlogged blocks MC-151150 – Entities (Villagers) cause massive lag when attempting to pathfind MC-151376 – Villagers are not pathfinding towards their POI; POI detection range is too small MC-151810 – Mobs don’t try to avoid fall damage anymore MC-154214 – Chunks refusing to unload due to incorrect player ticket additions MC-155147 – Mouse acceleration with the new 1.14.3 update MC-155906 – Failed to save debug dump if the destination location contains a space MC-100946 – Bow with mending undraws when receiving XP while drawed MC-113968 – Zombies of village siege spawn despite gamerule doMobSpawning being false MC-113970 – Zombies of village siege do not spawn centered on a block MC-134964 – Unexpected error: java.util.NoSuchElementException MC-142037 – java.lang.NullPointerException: Initializing game MC-143755 – Arbitrary score/selector/NBT resolution using lectern without operator rights MC-143886 – Acacia leaves render improprly from a distance MC-146289 – Farmer villagers don’t stop to pick up their crops MC-147844 – Pillagers don’t pathfind around obstacles & out of water MC-152094 – End city/end ship generation gets cut at chunk borders sometimes MC-152636 – Killing a zombie right as it converts into a Drowned will drop the loot from zombie while still converting into a Drowned MC-153498 – Cyrillic letter Є is not included in the Minecraft font MC-153665 – Full villager inventory creates invisible items MC-153712 – Java using 100-200% CPU (MacOS) MC-153766 – Rabbits no longer need sand/grass in order to spawn in deserts/tundras MC-153892 – Mending slows down breaking blocks MC-154019 – Beacon deactivate sound not sounds when you break the base MC-154031 – villagers give away all food if they want to share it MC-154068 – parrots occasionally disappearing when you take them from a boat MC-154201 – Trying to trade with villager immediately closes trading menu for some villagers MC-154362 – Crossbow has to re-load when mending takes place MC-154509 – Bashkir letters Ҙ, ҙ, Ҡ, ҡ, Ҫ, and ҫ are not included in the Minecraft font MC-154668 – Invalid characters crash the game in jigsaw block input upon pressing enter MC-154830 – All wall signs use oak color on maps MC-155092 – Zombie sieges can happen on mushroom islands MC-155104 – when closing a menu while moving the mouse, the screen will move in that direction MC-155172 – Hostile Wolf AI has been broken. Wolves can no longer attack enemies efficiently. MC-155238 – Villagers picking up workstation through wall MC-155345 – ConcurrentModificationException when a player leaves an active raid MC-155571 – Silverfish & Endermite spawners no longer functioning
The closed beta of Minecraft Earth is currently rolling out to several cities in the UK and US, with access being given to many of those who signed up in advance.
Some Apple iPhone owners in London and Seattle have reportedly been able to play it so far, and more are expected to be invited to try the beta test version soon.
We at Pocket-lint have also been trialling the new augmented reality game over for a couple of weeks and here are our thoughts and tips on what you can do in the closed beta and how to start.
It’s important to note that any progress made during the closed beta of Minecraft Earth will not carry on when the full game is released. And, many features of the final release are not yet available.
It is an AR game for iOS and Android that enables us to build Minecraft creations, either collaboratively or with friends, that are overlaid onto the real world for others to find, see and interact with.
Some of the gameplay revolves around collecting materials and mobs to build with, while the rest is dedicated to building mini Minecraft worlds.
An adventure mode will be added to the final release version of the game to be released at a later date, which will enable players to experience builds in a different way, but that’s not part of the closed beta trial.
Nor is the online storefront. You cannot, therefore, currently buy skins or mobs with cash – only collect them through the game.
How do you play Minecraft Earth?
You might see familiarities between the main screen in Minecraft Earth and Pokemon Go (and other AR games). It shows your character – using either male Steve skin or female Alex – on a map of your real world location. All around you will be collectable building resources and the occasional mob – a pig, duck, etc.
They appear in a catchment radius, represented by a circle around your position. Any within that circle are within reach.
You tap on them to collect them, which will break them down into their individual elements (blocks), which will be added to your inventory for use when building.
Mobs will remain whole and can also be added to builds once collected.
Minecraft Earth on-screen menu
Along the bottom of the screen are the different menu options.
On the far-left you can open your inventory of collected items and equip them for use. The next menu icon is to scan for friend invite codes. We are yet to play with someone who also has closed beta access, so that’s not proved to be much use for us yet.
The next menu is perhaps the most important for now as it allows you to start a build or continue with an existing project.
At present, you are presented with several templates to adapt. They are ranked by your player level (which rises as you build and collect materials) and only unlock when you’ve reached each specific level.
Buildplates
There are two options for a build. Either place it on the ground to see what it looks like in the real world, or as a buildplate to get close up to change how it looks. Every time you quit this mode it will save the template to reflect your modifications.
There is a settings menu to turn off the traditional Minecraft music and the like, and an option to turn on/off precise mode.
Precise mode, when switched on, allows you to turn your avatar using your finger. If off, you have to physically turn around to see all of the objects within the catchment radius.
That’s basically it for now. There’s not much to the closed beta as it is designed as a stress test for Microsoft rather than a full experience to enjoy on your travels. However, there’s still enough there to get a feel for how it will work on release and, although your builds won’t survive the switch over, it’s worth it to see what you are capable of making so you can eventually hit the ground running.
Our first impressions
The Minecraft Earth closed beta is remarkably simple. Being honest, there’s not really that much to do right now and until more people are accepted, few friends to share it with.
The adventure mode will surely spice things up. As will the expansion of players, who will drop their builds around the world for you to check out.
It’s more potential that perfect as it stands, although we do like the idea that it’s actually a lot easier to jump into than PG and Wizard’s Unite. That means it will be more suitable for younger players too.
Unfortunately, that means parents will have to hand over their phones to their kids once again, rinsing the battery in the process. But, Minecraft Earth is a more collaborative game anyway, so we might find it becoming an outdoors family pursuit in future.
YouTube star PewDiePie directed his attention to one of the most famous videogames last month, publishing his first Minecraft video in a decade. The renowned game commentator has since posted several dozen Minecraft-related videos.
Swedish top YouTuber Felix Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie, has uploaded a video on his official YouTube channel in which he gave his reasons as to why he had refused to play the sandbox computer game Minecraft when it first gained fame.
PewDiePie explained that it was precisely the overwhelming popularity of the game that was the biggest turnoff for the renowned social media personality when it came to playing Minecraft. He stated that back then, he believed that people were playing it just due to its popularity rather than because they genuinely enjoyed it.
Pewds added that he did not want to become exclusively a “Minecraft YouTuber”.
In late June, PewDiePie began posting a series of videos dedicated to Minecraft. Before the YouTube star took interest in the game, his only Minecraft video was a short clip posted back in 2010.
Minecraft is a sandbox game developed in Sweden in 2011 in which players can create, modify, or destroy their surroundings. It is known for its retro 3D graphics, reminiscent of games produced in the 1980s and is currently considered the best-selling game of all time.
