Minecraft fans now, in theory, never have to stop playing their favourite game thanks to an update that brings it to a variety of platforms, including Xbox One, Android and Windows 10 computers.
The Better Together Update from developer Mojang not only connects more gamers, allowing them to play together, but it also facilitates new usage scenarios, for example the option to start a game on a console and then move onto a smartphone when you leave the house.
The update also brings new features such as playing time on community servers and automatic synchronisation of updates and content across all devices when you're logged in with an Xbox Live account. — dpa
Mojang released Minecraft: Pocket Edition [$6.99] on the App Store back in August 2011, and initially the game didn't feature many things to do besides very simple crafting and survival compared to its desktop counterpart. This led to our underwhelmed feelings in our original review of the game from November 2011. Despite that, Minecraft: Pocket Edition became the number one paid game for quite some time on the App Store, and it continues to hover near the top to this day. Mojang has released many updates to Minecraft: Pocket Edition since its original release, completely transforming it, which led us to re-review the game in October of 2015, giving it its rightful 5 stars. And even since then Minecraft: Pocket Edition has continued to receive significant updates, adding in the Minecraft Marketplace this past June and then the ginormous “Better Together” update just last month. Mojang rebranded Minecraft: Pocket Edition to simply “Minecraft” and introduced many features that may make you want to reinstall the game on your iOS or Android device. Rather than try to re-review the game yet again, we've put together a short list of some of the most significant new features that may make you want to revisit the mobile Minecraft if you had given the lesser versions a try previously.
A highly requested feature by many Minecraft fans was that if you played on mobile, console, or even PC you could play with other Minecraft players no matter their device. Well, with Microsoft's help Mojang was able to integrate cross-play on iOS/Android, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and (of course) Windows 10's edition of Minecraft (which is available in the Windows 10 store). This is a massive feature to be added to Minecraft since it hasn't ever been playable across devices.
Marketplace to Spend Your Coins
Minecraft has always been a “build your own” game unless you hop onto some servers and build with other players. With the newly released Minecraft “Better Together” update, it allows for the community to chip in and offer some sweet things like maps, texture packs, skins, mash-up packs, server items, and much more through the Marketplace. You can purchase these items in the Marketplace by spending actual money and purchasing “coins” which allows you to spend money on any items on the Marketplace.
Featured Servers
When I see new players playing Minecraft, I always seem to find them to never be able to find servers since they've just joined the community and unsure of where to find servers. Mojang has made it easier than ever to join servers if they're approved by Mojang. Currently, there are only three featured servers which are Lifeboat Network, InPvP Network, and Mineplex. These are really great servers and seem to be very high quality. Those servers alone are a great reason to reinstall Minecraft.
Advanced Settings
Minecraft on the mobile side of things has always lacked in the settings area of things considering the game relies a lot on customization and with the Better Together update it's added a ton of new settings. Mojang allowed for more settings in-game like how storage is managed, quick switching of texture packs, skins, and even a better player permissions in settings, which allows for a lot better customization when playing the game with a lot of users.
Xbox Live Support
Lastly, Xbox Live support. This may seem like a terrible thing since Xbox doesn't make mobile games and it's one of Microsoft's gimmicks but it actually has a really great use. If you own multiple copies of Minecraft; let's say Xbox One, Windows 10, and on iOS, they've allowed for great syncing of information so all your stuff stays the same so you'll never notice when you switch to different platforms. It's all the same across both platforms.
Disguise Brings the Digital Adventures of Minecraft™ to Life with First Ever Minecraft™ Halloween Costumes. (Photo: Business Wire)
POWAY, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Disguise, Inc., the Halloween costume division of leading toy manufacturer, JAKKS Pacific, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAKK), is thrilled to launch the first ever Minecraft™ costumes and accessories; available now at retailers nationwide in time for Halloween.
Disguise brings the digital adventures of Minecraft™ to life with first ever Minecraft™ Halloween Costumes
Disguise® has created authentic, licensed Halloween costumes and accessories based on fan-favorite characters from Minecraft™, the wildly popular sandbox video game. Players mine and craft 3D blocks in an exciting world of varied biomes and terrain. Explore alone or adventure with friends!
Kids can choose from iconic characters such as Steve, Alex, or the Creeper, or don a full set of diamond Minecraft™ Armor, to take digital adventures off-screen for the Halloween festivities. Pants and tunic are designed to mimic the game’s 3D blocky aesthetic, with ample range of motion perfect for trick-or-treating. The long-sleeve tunic features detailed character artwork on the front and continued print coverage on the back. The half-masks include mesh eye-plate and foam insert designed to be more comfortable for wearers and allow for outstanding range of vision.
Adventuring is made easy when kids add the Minecraft™ Sword or Minecraft™ Pickaxe as an accessory to complete their costume.
Available in child sizes 4-6, 7-8 and 10-12 at retailers nationwide for an approximate retail price of $69.99, and the Minecraft™ Sword and Minecraft™ Pickaxe retail for $11.99 each.
About Disguise, Inc.
Since 1987, Disguise has been a leader in the Halloween industry creating innovative and trend setting costumes and accessories. Based in San Diego, Disguise produces costumes and accessories under many of the world’s leading licensed brands as well as its own proprietary brands for the nation’s largest retailers including specialty, party and pop up stores. As a wholly owned subsidiary of JAKKS Pacific since 2008, Disguise designs and manufactures millions of costumes for the American and other markets worldwide each year bringing smiles and creating memories for kids and adults alike. To see Disguise’s extensive Halloween collection, please visit www.disguise.com.
Disguise is a trademark of Disguise, Inc.
About JAKKS Pacific, Inc.
JAKKS Pacific, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAKK) is a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of toys and consumer products sold throughout the world, with its headquarters in Santa Monica, California. JAKKS Pacific’s popular proprietary brands include BIG-FIGS™, XPV®, Max Tow™, Disguise®, Moose Mountain®, Funnoodle®, Maui®, Kids Only!®; a wide range of entertainment-inspired products featuring premier licensed properties; and C’est Moi™, a youth skincare and make-up brand. Through JAKKS Cares, the company’s commitment to philanthropy, JAKKS is helping to make a positive impact on the lives of children. Visit us at www.jakks.com and follow us on Instagram (@jakkstoys), Twitter (@jakkstoys) and Facebook (JAKKS Pacific).
Mojang AB is a Microsoft-owned games studio based in Stockholm, Sweden. We’re responsible for the relatively popular video game Minecraft. We also created the card-collecting tactical battler Scrolls, and have dabbled in publishing with Oxeye Game Studio’s awesome side-scrolling robo-blaster Cobalt. We’re developing more games, too, but we’re not ready to talk about those quite yet.
Contacts
JAKKS Pacific, Inc. Rachel Griffin, 424-268-9553 PR@Disguise.com
If you’re a superfan of Minecraft, you’ve got to be there.
Minefaire, an official Minecraft fan experience, returns Oct. 14-15 to the region where it was created. Earlier this year Minefaire was held in Houston, Charlotte and Washington DC. Did you know that guinnessworldrecords.com says last year’s Minefaire held at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center set a Guinness World Record for largest convention for a single video game?
Minecraft is the virtual game where you build new worlds, block by block, by mining the resources you find.
“It’s not just a game,” Minefaire cofounder Gabe Young said in a press release. “While you’re making dinner and your kids are playing Minecraft, they’re experiencing the huge educational and inspirational aspects that are driving them to become an engineer or an architect — to think really, really big.”
Chad Collins, one of the Bucks County fathers who founded Minefaire, also had a statement: “Minefaire is a chance for parents to connect with their kids through their favorite game and have a blast. We were determined to create a one-of-a-kind Minecraft experience you won’t find at home.”
So how big is Minecraft?
The Minefaire folks tell us that Minecraft is the second best-selling stand-alone video game of all time, with more than 122 million units sold. That’s second only to Tetris.
Where is Minefaire being held?
Halls A and B of the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center, 100 Station Ave., Upper Providence. That’s 150,000 square feet of all things Minecraft. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. for both Saturday and Sunday.
Give me a summary of what’s going to be there.
A Mineplex with more than 45 original free-to-play games for varying skill levels (and 10 million players); Minecraft Virtual Reality Experiences; live performances on four “mega-stages;” a Minecraft costume contest; meet and greets with Minecraft YouTube stars; Build Battles for both kids and adults; a Learning Lab with official Minecraft mentors and educators that are using Minecraft in local classrooms; and new, rare and custom Minecraft items.
What’s the admission price?
All-inclusive tickets start at $29.50, free for ages 2 and under.
Frustration over Final Fantasy XIV’s housing shortage has come to a head after two players angered a lot of others by buying up 28 homes in the land-strapped massively multiplayer online game. Now, players are questioning whether virtual housing is an equal right or a privilege meant for the rich and over-dedicated.
The two players bought their homes in a formerly vacant corner of the game, a server called Mateus, where they could pursue dual ambitions of opulence and privacy. Their critics say they’ve hoarded land from dozens of FFXIV citizens, who feel they deserve a chance at housing. That criticism has gotten ugly as players hotly debate whether their elitism—or desire for mass amounts of property—has any place in a game where everybody pays the same fee.
Martyr Igeyorhm and Seraph Altima
“Given we both came to Mateus for the quiet, it’s distinctly uncomfortable to have others come in and insult us,” one of the bulk home-owners, a player who goes by the name Martyr Igeyorhm, told me during a tour of their two-occupant neighborhood today. “We’ve had to report people for harassment a few times.” Her housing partner Seraph Altima agreed, adding, “I think it’s wrong that people ignore the work and just see themselves being deprived.”
FFXIV has had housing drama as long as it’s had houses. When producer Naoki Yoshida introduced housing to FFXIV in 2011, he emphasized fair land distribution. But in the intervening years, housing has become a contentious topic in the game as speculators and thick-pocketed players monopolized property on big servers. Other times, players didn’t even use the houses they buy; it’s just a status symbol.
About 2,500 houses are available for each of FFXIV’s servers, which on average host over twice that amount of players. Houses aren’t a necessity in FFXIV, but owning one means having your own space to invite new raiding friends, host parties and, most importantly, decorate. Players paste ornate wallpaper to their walls, fill rooms with carved wood chests and candles and decorate with garlands and gold trimming. They cost several million FFXIV gil, unfurnished. Fur rugs, wall-to-wall bookshelves, portraits and hot tubs garnish the homes of more thick-pocketed players who choose to sink their resources in home decor. Smaller apartments remain available too, but without the grandeur of a garden or street entrance (and on some servers, houses are still available.)
Out of this design frenzy, an FFXIV adaptation of Cribs has even emerged. A year ago, it featured the player Seraph Altima and her “sanctuary,” complete with a lush garden, an attended full bar and stone partitions.
The reporter’s alternate account in Altima and Igeyorhm’s home
Altima had carved out sanctuaries on two of FFXIV’s most populous servers. There, not even apartments, the less sought-after housing option, remain on the market. Publisher Square Enix has been adding more plots to keep up with demand, and will add more in the future, but right now, there’s not enough to go around. Over e-mail, a Square Enix representative told Kotaku that players are only able to purchase one house per character. But because both individual players and Free Companies—FFXIV’s guilds—can own property, players break that mandate a lot.
Last year, Altima fled the game’s more populous servers and established her new home on the quaint Mateus. At that point, it was one of the only servers with a wealth of land. She and Igeyorhm claimed 28 plots and thought they’d have that space to themselves. Likely, their land avarice wouldn’t have become a problem if thousands of refugees hadn’t recently fled booked-up servers searching for fresh housing frontiers.
Square Enix started offering free server transfers prior to FFXIV’s June Stormblood expansion, so players who wanted to avoid the influx of returning fans could game in peace. Mateus, which was unofficially designated a new role-playing server and was still a pristine (and cheap) housing frontier, was quickly full of home-scouters. Eventually, the housing options in that server filled up, too. When incoming transfers realized that they could no longer purchase plots on Mateus, of all places, and noticed that two players owned a plush 28 plots, accusations of greed and unfeeling avarice spread. Over Facebook and Reddit, hundreds of players had angry words for the alleged gentrifiers who felt “entitled” to own all that property when so many recent transfers (and players still saving up) never had a chance to carve out a home on Mateus.
Altima and Igeyorhm’s underground library
Altima estimates that their 28 homes, the majority of an entire ward, cost around 150 million gil. If they had bought that gil, it’d have cost $375. On FFXIV this morning, Igeyorhm described themselves as “omnicrafters,” or players who “make all of our own items and sell other items for profit.” (To save a few bucks, most of their decor was made using FFXIV’s crafting system, too.) It took a lot of time. And she doesn’t feel sorry for players who put in less effort, or got to Mateus later along with the crowds. On a now-viral Tumblr post in response to public outcry, Altima wrote, “Many people feel entitled to own a house. They feel that even knowing there are only 2,160 plots (soon to be 2,880) on any given server, they can and should be allowed to go at their own pace and have free access to any content they like, including housing. They want a house of their own, but they don’t want to accept that lots of other people want it badly enough to work harder for it than they did.”
“Good lord,” a Redditor wrote. “People who aren’t rich enough to afford houses just aren’t TRYING hard enough? Not wanting neighbors putting up ‘ugly’ Paissa houses in ‘MY neighborhood?’ It’s like the most stereotypical rich snob attitude I’ve ever seen, except it’s apparently REAL (other than being in a video game).” Another described their actions as “selfishness because this person wanted to make a bastion of single-player content in a multiplayer game.”
Altima and Igeyorhm’s cake shop
I met Altima and Igeyorhm at the entrance of Goblet Ward 12 on FFXIV’s Mateus server. There, they fielded my questions while we toured through their saccharine two-floor cake shop, picture-perfect schoolyard, somber church to the FFXIV deity Zodiark and many, many gardens. Igeyorhm excitedly pointed out ice crystal formations and bubbling fountains between dives into hand-designed underground libraries and the like. I asked whether home construction was something she pursued in other games.
“Not really,” she said. “A lot of people like to ask us, ‘Why not play the Sims?’ Because we do so much other stuff!” Igyorhm said that, after her husband died, she hasn’t decorated much in real life. A few months later, she met Altima, and together they’ve spent an estimated thousand hours curating their 28 plots.
Neither thinks they’re unfairly eating up FFXIV’s limited housing resources. They blame Square Enix for not accommodating players’ passion for home-ownership—at least with houses. Although more cramped apartments are available on some servers and more housing will be added soon, the problem is more of philosophy than accessibility: Are players entitled to property in FFXIV—any more than they’re entitled to raiding mounts or veteran rewards? Is it the richer players, or the ones with more free time to grind out crafting exp, who are more entitled to take up space?
Altima and Igeyorhm’s schoolhouse
I asked Altima and Igeyorhm whether they’d give up any one of their plots for a new transfer desperate for a home. They paused. “These are our memories. Our precious time spent together,” Igeyorhm said.
Of course, some players still think they should be able to get those houses. “Not everyone needs everything in-game,” counters Altima. She argues that she’s not depriving anyone of housing; the plots were empty for years before they took them. “For example, not everyone deserves the Savage raiding mounts if they don’t do Alexander.”
Today’s 4.1 update to Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood introduced new player housing in the scenic, Far Eastern-themed district of Shirogane. Servers went online at 6AM, putting 720 new housing plots on the market. The choicest locations were gone before many players could even clear the login queue.
In order to acquire one of the new housing plots, players had to be fast. Grabbing one involves making their way as quickly as possibly to the area their preferred plot is located in and staking a claim before anyone else. One helpful tip circulating for players hoping to score a home this morning involves setting their character to busy, so other players can’t attempt to interrupt the purchase by opening a trade window. It’s a cutthroat game that’s over in a flash.
The login queues did not help. The launch of a new update is a busy time for any popular MMO, and the 4.1 “The Legend Returns” update is pretty huge. According to reports gathered in game and in the Final Fantasy XIV forums, many players who had prepared for today’s land rush found them stuck in login queues, their hopes of a new home ticking away with each passing minute.
The new Shirogane district features its own hot springs, suitable for bathing and fishing.
Final Fantasy XIV’s housing system is notoriously bad. Where other games allow players to carve out a private space for themselves or their guild as they see fit, Square Enix’s MMO keeps available housing limited. Up until today’s patch there were three housing areas in each server. Each housing area features 12 wards, with 60 plots of varying sizes in each. That’s 2,160 spots for players and free companies (guilds). Taking into account players who like to horde housing or free companies attempting to buy up plots en masse, that’s not a lot of space.
Adding 720 more plots per server doesn’t help much, especially when they’re fresh and new and oh-so-pretty. The forums and Reddit are filled with nightmare stories about today’s chaotic land grab. It’s the worst part of an otherwise excellent patch. It’s souring the entire experience. Players are talking about canceling their accounts. My free company leader mentioned hearing someone suggest the Shirogane area’s name be changed to “Shiogane” (“shio” is Japanese for salt.)
All housing areas now feature swimming, so that’s something.
It’s a rough system, to be sure. It’s been rough for years. When housing was introduced in Final Fantasy XIV back in 2011, I was excited at the idea of owning my own little home and decorating it with all sorts of virtual FF items. Then I saw the exorbitant prices for player homes and the relatively slim chance of actually getting one, and I gave up. I am a bold adventurer. I have conquered gods, demons and kings and averted world-ending catastrophe on several occasions. My home is wherever my sword or fishing rod takes me.
To be honest, my character can’t even afford an apartment.
Seriously though, please fix this, Square Enix. I am fine with anything. Build us a Final Fantasy-flavored slum and I will live under a box, as long as I don’t have to fight for it.
