After Minecraft Live the entire Minecraft community had endless questions (we know we did!) From the addition of the Sniffer to Minecraft, to the brand new bookshelves, we were in awe of things to come. After also hearing about the upcoming Snapshot release, players had even more questions in preparation to play the newest update.
Thankfully, a group behind the scenes of the newest snapshot stepped forward and answered questions on reddit:
- Ulraf, the gameplay designer
- u/Yung_Tak, the feedback guru
- B, a Minecraft Java Developer
- and N, a Bedrock Minecraft Developer
You can view the entirety of the QnA session here on reddit:
The New Minecraft Chiseled Bookshelf
Question: "The new chiseled bookshelf block is great! Though at the moment you can only take out the last book in the shelf instead of picking any book you want. Are there any specific reasons why it works this way?"
Answer: "It's actually one of the specific things we wanted to gather feedback on, and we definitely are iterating on it, in order to see what works best for all players and platforms."
This is an interesting answer as this could drastically change how puzzle maps and Minecraft adventure maps integrate chiseled bookshelves. If choosing books directly isn't added in the final update, the casual Minecraft player may see themselves just using chiseled bookshelves as book storage instead of creatively.
We at Shockbyte think you might also be interested in:
Lagging, Performance, and Optimization
Question: "Why hasn't there been any focus on optimization, especially for the Java version? Every update the performance only seems to get worse and worse."
Answer: "Good question! Performance optimizations is definitely one of the tech debts we are currently trying to address in our new way of working. For a long time we've been very focused on delivering new updates, but especially on Java we've recently changed our internal org to be able to address more tech debts."
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Minecraft Live Camels Introduction
Question: "Do you hope the addition of Camels will act as a replacement or alternative to horses? By the way, they’re so cute!"
Answer: "Our take on it is that we can have a world with both lovely horses and cute camels at the same time. We actually spent a long time thinking about how to make the camel different from the horse and not simply being a "better" rideable. We think we found a niche for it, while also letting the horse be unique with i.e the jump."
When we saw the Camel's dash ability and two-seating capabilities, questions definitely came up regarding using them as preferred mounts over horses (especially with groups of friends). If horses do end up only having a vertical jump versus camels we may see them fade out of popularity in favor of this new desert-based mount.
Further changes to the Minecraft Snapshot
Question: "Will the stuff we've seen get more updates in the future?"
Answer: "We are always listening to the community's feedback. Players can try out these features via Betas and Snapshot. It's very important for us to be able to take this feedback into account when deciding as a team how to iterate on features."
This may at first only appear as a considerate reply to a simple question but it shows the community has a lot more power over the future of Minecraft than they may think. Hosting a dedicated server of your own for the Minecraft Snapshot can be a wonderful opportunity for you to try the new features and give your feedback online, shaping future updates to the game.
Differences between Bedrock and Java Versions
Question: "What are your plans for parity between Bedrock and Java? Which version will take more precedent?"
Answer: "We are always trying to close the gap between Java and Bedrock when it comes to parity and understand that it is a delicate balance. Our vision is that if we have two kids on the playground, they shouldn't care about which version they are playing when they share their cool tips. In order to achieve that, we have to close the gap as much as we can."
This is very important question with fans of Minecraft spanning across so many unique consoles modernly. These versions matter a lot as well to fans who own both, deciding which consoles they should choose to host servers for, and what community members (or friends) could even participate if they did.
AMA Wrap-up
That about finalized the biggest questions and answers we received during the 90 minute period of developer interaction. It was a unique opportunity for the community to directly interact with the minds behind Minecraft, and gave some great insight into things to come.
Looking for more Minecraft?
- Catch up with what was added in Minecraft 1.19
- Look at what we expected out of Minecraft Live
- Best Multiplayer Minecraft Adventure Maps
About Shockbyte
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