When Did Minecraft 1.2 Come Out

Minecraft is one of the bestselling video games of all time simply getting started with it can exist a bit intimidating, let lonely even understanding why it'south so popular. In this edition of How-To Geek School we're going to assist y'all become started with the game (or at least understand why your kids dearest information technology and so much).

Despite its simple advent there is a whole lot going on in Minecraft. Information technology can feel confusing only don't worry, we've laid out a serial of lessons that will have you from not knowing a unmarried thing about the game to advanced gameplay. This includes creating custom maps, building in-game devices and structures, as well every bit thriving in the difficult Survival Mode.

Today we're going to dig into installing and setting up Minecraft to get you playing and enjoying the game every bit chop-chop as possible. After that, we'll accept daily lessons focused on optimizing the game, learning nearly all the absurd terrain and creatures, and more than advanced aspects of gameplay like setting up a local multiplayer game, customizing your in-game appearance, and playing online.

If you've watched your friends or kids play and scratched your head at what exactly the appeal is (or possibly you're already convinced and excited to become) we'll highlight what makes Minecraft so downright addictive to and then many.

For about people, it'due south of import to understand what exactly this hugely popular game is and why others become so enamored with information technology before they'll take information technology for a spin. We'll thus brainstorm with a look at the history of Minecraft and what exactly the game even is.

What Is Minecraft?

Earlier we get into installing and playing the game, let's take a long await at what exactly Minecraft even is, where it came from, and what makes information technology and so popular (as of early on 2014, the game has had over 100 million players worldwide). Despite its huge number of copies sold and players registered, it isn't immediately credible to many people exactly what the appeal of Minecraft is and how the game has managed to suck in everyone from simple school kids to retirees.

Minecraft is the brainchild of Swedish videogame programmer and designer Markus "Notch" Persson. He began creating the game in his spare fourth dimension while working equally a game developer for Jalbum and eventually founded Mojang, once Minecraft proved popular plenty to exist his total time chore.

His work was heavily influenced by earlier videogames such as Dungeon Keeper (a tardily 1990s resources and dungeon management game), Dwarf Fortress (a procedurally-generated open earth-building game released in 2006), and Infiniminer (a small indie game that foreshadowed Minecraft with cake-based sandbox gameplay). You're free to explore those games if you lot want to get a sense of Minecraft's video game ancestry, just what'due south really of import is what those games are. Permit's ascertain some of those game terms and how they relate to Minecraft in society to better sympathise Minecraft and its delinquent success.

Minecraft belongs to three singled-out video game genres and the fashion those genres intertwine with each other create the experience that draws players in. First, Minecraft is an open world game. In open up earth games you are complimentary to roam wherever yous want with very few limits imposed on you. In most video games, you lot can merely go where the designer of the video game intended you to get (and where they created space for you lot to go).

Take every bit a unproblematic example, your average Super Mario Bros. game. No thing how much you want to walk outside of Bowser's Castle and roam around the gardens, you lot can't do that because the video game designers never intended for you lot to go outside the castle and, in the very lawmaking of the video game, that garden doesn't even really be beyond the little hint of it you see through a window while playing within the castle level. The pieces of the game across the reach of the player are substantially decorative, like backdrops on a stage.

In Minecraft there are very few limits like that, because the game was never intended to be played in a linear way. With very few exceptions, if you can come across something in Minecraft, you tin go explore it, touch information technology, or otherwise interact with it.

In addition to an open world pattern, Minecraft is as well a "sandbox" game. Although the term sandbox is often used interchangeably with "open world" to describe games that allow you to roam all over the place with few limitations, a true sandbox game includes tools that allow the actor to modify the game world. In that regard, Minecraft is a virtual epitome of sandbox gaming as, regardless of how y'all play the game, using tools to change and interact with your environment is the very ground of the experience. Information technology is but expected that the Minecraft thespian volition use their in-game easily and tools to break, movement, build, and rearrange the earth.

Finally, Minecraft is besides a procedurally generated game; this aspect of the game is intimately tied to the open world experience. In your typical linear video game, the game designers create a sort of tunnel in which the player passes from Point A to Point Z in the course of playing the game. Fifty-fifty games that experience large and allow you to make choices near what you're going to do and in what order are still essentially linear in that y'all starting time the game, you follow the story (and enjoy the scenery along the manner), y'all get in at the last station on the linear-game train line, and the game is over. Every end on the line, equally of scenery, every dungeon, everything you experience in the game was carefully placed there past the designers, much like a film crew and director creates the feel yous have while watching a movie.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with making a game that way, mind yous, and there are plenty of brilliant and iconic video games that are designed in simply such a fashion, merely such games are inherently limited in scope simply because in that location is an intimate balance between how much time and coin can be invested in the game and deadline pressures.

Procedural generation changes that dynamic as the game world is generated by an algorithmic procedure and tin be substantially infinite (limited just past artificial constraints put in place past the game developer or by the computational restraints of the estimator arrangement hosting the game). The Minecraft world is, in this regard, effectively infinite equally its primary limitation is the computational constraints of 32-fleck computing.

If yous were to interpret the largest possible Minecraft map (using the limitations of 32-bit computing as the upper threshold of the map'due south size) into a real world scale (wherein each cake in Minecraft is a foursquare meter), the size of a Minecraft map from edge to border would exist 9.iii million times larger than the surface surface area of the World. In fact, a player named Kurt Mac turned walking across a Minecraft map into a sort of Zen experience. He's spent the concluding few years simply walking across the world—assuming he sticks with the task, he'll cease the trek around 2040.

Our talk about sandbox play, the huge world, and that last bit virtually how Kurt Mac is just walking across the world for fun, highlight the true allure of Minecraft. The game is not only practically infinite in size but practically space in the manner you lot play it.

Minecraft isn't about saving a kingdom (or the whole world), exploring monster-filled caverns, building a performance city complete with electrical lights, or planning a crazy rollercoaster, but it can be whatever, all, or none of those things if you lot want it to exist. The hush-hush to Minecraft'south success is that the game is a toolbox that allows players to make the game into the one they want to play, exist that game focused on building, exploring, surviving, or all of the in a higher place.

Much similar the popularity of LEGO^® blocks and other structure toys, Minecraft allows you to build whatever y'all desire to build: castles, racetracks, rocket ships, doll houses, and everything in between; all while using tools y'all're familiar with and can easily manipulate.

Once y'all familiarize yourself with the tools and techniques that underpin the Minecraft world, you can easily employ tools to make Minecraft whatever you want information technology to be; the game becomes a Swiss Army Pocketknife of building, adventuring, and fun.

Intrigued by a game that can be any the thespian wants information technology to exist? Whether you're interested because you're looking for a new game to lose yourself in or yous're trying to figure out exactly why your child or grandchild is so completely engrossed in Minecraft, read on as we peel away the blocky layers of the game and walk you through everything from installing the game to understanding its more arcane underpinnings.

What Tin I Play Minecraft On and How Much Does It Price?

Minecraft is wildly popular and every bit yous tin can imagine, has been ported and adopted for a variety of platforms. The original Minecraft game was created for desktop computers and the desktop version remains the most popular version of Minecraft.

Minecraft PC Edition

The PC edition of Minecraft is Java-based and tin be played on any Windows, Mac, or Linux machine with Java installed and suitable hardware. Although Minecraft looks very simple thanks to the minimalist leanings of the graphics and user-interface, under the surface the game is rather sophisticated and the procedural generation of the world, besides as in-game physics, require beefier hardware than yous'd expect.

For that reason, Minecraft PC edition has an extended demo that the developers highly recommend you lot take advantage of earlier purchasing in social club to determine if your computer tin provide a smoothen and enjoyable Minecraft experience (we'll show you lot how to try out the demo style in but a moment).

If you lot have access to all the various platforms Minecraft can run on, we strongly recommend going with the original PC edition over the alternative editions like those available for mobile devices and game consoles. Although the PC edition runs $27, making it the most expensive edition of Minecraft, information technology'southward the well-nigh versatile and definitely offers the almost bang-for-cadet when you cistron in the diverse multiplayer servers and how you tin essentially change the game entirely with mod packs.

Minecraft Pocket Edition

In addition to the desktop version at that place is also a Minecraft Pocket Edition (PE). Minecraft PE is available for Android and iOS devices and costs $vii. The Pocket Edition is significantly less enervating than the PC version; we had no problems playing Minecraft PE on an old iPad 1, for instance.

Although Minecraft PE is dandy for playing the game on the go, it does have some fairly stiff restrictions compared to the PC edition. All content is separate from the PC and Console editions (so you can simply join multiplayer servers, for example, intended for Minecraft PE).

Redstone, Minecraft's version of electricity/electrical circuits, and a pretty significant element of many constructs in the PC Edition, is completely missing from the Pocket Edition. Unlike Minecraft PC Edition's nearly space globe map, Pocket Edition's maps are limited to 256 x 256 blocks. While that's still plenty of room to roam around and build, it's not quite the same spacious experience.

While many players are okay with the limitations of the Pocket Edition, an almost universal complaint is how kludgy using on-screen controls is compared to using a mouse and keyboard on the PC or a quality controller on the Console Edition.

Minecraft Console Edition

Panel players can pick upwards a copy of Minecraft Console Edition (CE) for the Xbox platform and for the PlayStation platform (both of which are $20). Because the Console Edition is tweaked specifically for the platform information technology is deployed on, you can look smoothen play without worrying nearly hardware requirements.

Early on editions of the Panel Edition were a chip rough around the edges; the Xbox and PlayStation releases had pregnant differences and were out of sync. All Console Edition releases are in sync now, receiving concurrent updates. Compared to the Pocket Edition, Console Edition is pretty advanced and more closely resembles the PC Edition. Similar the Pocket Edition all the same, the world is still limited in size albeit bigger at 864 ten 864 blocks.

I significant deviation between the Console Edition and all other editions is that it supports local split-screen play and then you tin can couch co-op play with up to three friends.

Minecraft Raspberry Pi Edition

Finally, Minecraft has even been ported to the Raspberry Pi. The Pi Edition is particularly interesting from an educational standpoint. Pi Edition is intended to exist used as an educational tool and included tools for budding programmers and enthusiasts to really modify the game code.

The Pi edition is based on the Pocket Edition merely includes Artistic Mode and lacks Survival Mode or any elements related to Survival Way.

Nosotros can't stress the educational/experimental function of the Pi Edition strongly enough. If you want the total Minecraft experience, this won't be it. If you want the thrill of picking apart the video game y'all're playing at the code-level and peering into its guts, the Pi version for y'all.

Follow Along with Any Edition

For the purposes of this How-To Geek School series, nosotros will exist focusing on the reckoner version every bit it is the most widely adopted, has the most features, and will provide the best framework in which to discuss and highlight all the amazing things you lot can do with Minecraft.

Even if you lot're interested in playing on the PE, CE, or Pi editions notwithstanding, nosotros'd still highly recommend yous read through the series as the majority of the information applies to all editions. If you are using a non-PC edition, reference the links we provided above to the Minecraft Wiki hosted at Gamepedia to see what elements of the PC edition are missing from the edition you're using.

Installing Minecraft

One time you've looked over the PC requirements, it's time to install your copy of Minecraft and take it for a spin.

Let'due south take a walk through the signup and installation procedure.

Signing Up for an Account

The get-go footstep is to sign upwards for an account. Whether you want to leap right to purchasing a copy or play the demo, you'll need to create a free business relationship at Minecraft.internet. Signup is elementary, only provide a legitimate email address and select a password. Wait for a verification email from Mojang (Minecraft's parent company) and and so confirm when information technology arrives.

When you lot click through the verification link, it volition take y'all to the 2d step of the registration process: selecting your Minecraft username and purchasing the game.

If you wish to try the demo before purchasing, jump to this link showtime. There you lot can download the demo without creating a username/purchasing the game. The demo allows yous to play the game for 100 minutes (roughly five in-game Minecraft days); you can reset the demo and play it once more, but y'all're always express to 100 minutes earlier y'all must reset the world.

Whether you've purchased the game outright or yous're trying the demo, the next step is to download the game and install information technology. On the download page select the advisable download for your platform; Windows users should grab Minecraft.exe (a Windows friendly wrapper for the Minecraft launcher, and the tool we'll be using); OS 10 users should grab the Minecraft.dmg; and Linux users, or anyone using an alternative operating arrangement capable of running Java, should grab the Minecraft.jar file.

If you lot exercise non already have Java installed on your reckoner (or yous are running an outdated re-create) you must install and/or update before playing Minecraft. Visit the Java back up page to grab the appropriate copy of Java seven+ for your operating organization. It is strongly recommended you use the 64-scrap copy of Coffee if you have a 64-bit processor/OS equally y'all'll encounter significant performance gains.

Save the file to your estimator and, when the download is complete, launch the file. Y'all'll see a brief load sequence and then a login prompt.

Ever log in with your email accost (the simply people who need to input a username are those who registered for Minecraft in 2012 or before).

In one case logged in, you're presented with the Update Notes tab which brings you up-to-speed on the most recent changes in Minecraft. In addition to the Update Notes tab there is also a tab for the Evolution Console, Profile Editor, and Local Version Editor. Feel gratis to ignore these for at present every bit they are of very express use to a beginning role player and outside of troubleshooting or a few specific needs, yous won't ever need to visit them.

At this point, we're ready to really dig in and play the game. Only in that location is 1 useful chemical element we want to highlight before nosotros jump into playing.

Using Profiles

Downward in the lower-left corner of the Minecraft launcher is the "Profile" section. By default there is only one profile, named after your Minecraft.net username, and set up to apply the latest stable release of Minecraft.

Although you lot tin can get by with just one profile at that place are several benefits to having multiple profiles. Multiple profiles allow you to play with different versions of Minecraft, like beta releases and older releases that are sometimes required for joining multiplayer servers that haven't updated to the current release notwithstanding, and they allow you to silo the game information.

Let'southward say, for example, that you take three children who all play Minecraft on the same estimator. If y'all've been experiencing some grouse virtually the kids messing around with worlds, deleting worlds, or otherwise disturbing the peace, information technology's very easy to create a profile for each child where all their changes and maps are separate.

Click on the "New Profile" button now, just to get a experience for how it works:

While you can specify several different settings in the Contour Editor, the most immediately necessary and useful ones are "Profile Name," "Game Directory," and "Use version."

Profile names let you to specify who or what the account is for, e.one thousand. "Steve," "Jenny," "Testing Beta Release," "Multiplayer Serve,r" and the similar. Irresolute the "Game Directory" is very useful in that it allows you to divide, as we mentioned above, the player'due south information. So in the case of quondam "Steve" and "Jenny" we can make profiles named subsequently them and so append the default \.minecraft\ naming scheme for the data folders to \.minecraft-steve\ and \.minecraft-jenny\ for their corresponding profiles.

For reference, the default location of all Minecraft game data is in the following folders based on which operating system Minecraft is installed on:

Windows	C:\Users\[yourusername]\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\
Mac OS	/Users/[yourusername]/Library/Awarding Back up/Minecraft/
Linux	/home/[yourusername]/.minecraft/

Any time you make a new profile and specify a new Game Directory, the Minecraft launcher will automatically create the advisable folder structure and populate information technology with files from the Minecraft servers.

Creating Your Starting time World

At present that nosotros've highlighted the benefit of the profile system, it'south fourth dimension to create our first world and play!

Click the "Play" button to get started. The showtime time you run Minecraft (or after an update) you'll run across a green progress bar across the bottom of the launcher every bit it downloads the new material. Afterward, y'all'll be dumped into the actual Minecraft app.

Let's start off simple past focusing on the Singleplayer feel. In later on lessons nosotros'll learn about Multiplayer and Minecraft Realms. Click on "Singleplayer" to become started.

Hither you lot'll observe your local worlds linked to your contour; because it's a brand new installation there are no worlds yet.

Click "Create New Earth" to pull up the earth creation dialog. Here we are able to name our new world, select the game way, and set boosted globe options.

The default game mode is "Survival". Click the "Game Style" button in the center of the screen to swap information technology to "Creative." Nosotros'll return to game modes in the next lesson but for now, artistic play is the best manner to larn the controls and figure out how to move around the Minecraft world.

Every bit for naming your world, we're addicted of naming the worlds nosotros use for experimenting and learning "Learning Lab" or some iteration thereof.

Leave "More World Options…" alone, we'll return to the fun toggles and adjustments available in that location in a later lesson focused on custom worlds and their creation. Once you've named your world and switched it to "Creative," click "Create New Globe," and sit back equally Minecraft flexes some of that procedural generation magic in order to create yous a unique earth to explore.

Maneuvering Around the Minecraft World

Don't worry if the view y'all have doesn't match the view we take below. Each Minecraft world, unless loaded from the same source as some other Minecraft globe, is a unique generation. And then whether the game plunked you downwardly in a forest biome, on a beach, or atop a mount, you can however walk through the basics of maneuvering the map and using the keyboard shortcuts with us.

Y'all'll notice that the beginning affair the game does, after dropping you onto the map (this initial point is known in Minecraft lingo as your spawn point), is prompt y'all to press the "E" central to open your inventory.

Because we are currently in Creative Mode, we see the full creative inventory (all the bachelor blocks and materials) as opposed to the Survival Mode inventory (which simply displays materials you lot've gathered yourself in-game). The tabs around the Creative Way inventory make it like shooting fish in a barrel to hone in on only the materials/objects you lot want: the tab with the sword on it intuitively shows you in-game weapons, and the tab with the trivial rail section shows you the in-game transportation tools.

The gray band of blocks at the bottom of the inventory screen is your quick-access toolbar. Whatsoever items you lot identify in that strip of nine spaces will be bachelor to y'all outside of the inventory card. Go ahead and place some blocks in the quick-access bar now. We're going to select some brightly colored wool blocks and so they'll stand out from the regular terrain during subsequent screenshots.

One thing worth noting is that, in Creative Mode at least, there is no sense of urgency whatsoever. Don't feel like y'all take to race toward any sort of goal or against whatever sort of clock. Sitting here in Creative Manner is similar sitting on the floor with a bin of LEGO^® bricks (a classic structure toy that is, coincidentally, also of Scandinavian origin similar Minecraft). There's no blitz in Creative Manner and so have your time.

Once you've finished poking around the inventory carte du jour (don't experience overwhelmed by the huge number of blocks and objects establish in that location, you lot'll be a main of Minecraft edifice materials in no fourth dimension), press the "ESC" key to return to the return to the game.

Minecraft uses a combination of mouse movements and keystrokes. Move is controlled by a traditional WASD + Spacebar setup: "W" is forward, "A" is dorsum, "S" is left, and "D" is right with the spacebar functioning as a spring key. In Artistic Mode double tapping the jump fundamental turns Fly Manner on wherein you can fly like a bird upwardly and over the landscape.

The direction your grapheme looks is controlled by moving the mouse (which controls the focal bespeak of the outset-person camera). "East", as we've learned, opens the inventory. Left-mouse smashes blocks (or attacks creatures in front end of you). Correct-mouse click uses the item in your hand (if you lot can consume/drink it) or places it downward (if it'south a block or other object). If you need to drib something, you can press "Q" to exercise so.

Let's do some simple motility and block placement before reviewing the common keyboard and mouse controls in a handy table. Grab a block and build something near your spawn point.

After you've congenital your kickoff in-game construction, why not take a expect at it from in a higher place? Double-tap the spacebar to enable Fly Mode and wing up to look downwardly on your new creation:

You'll notice that the edge of the map fades into a sort of fog. This represents the edge of the game's render distance. The more powerful your figurer the higher you lot tin can gear up the render without suffering a performance hit (we'll talk about this in a moment).

Take a moment to fly around and wait at your creation for all angles. Then have some fourth dimension to review these useful keyboard/mouse commands:

Mouse/Cardinal	Function
Mouse Movement	Used for turning, aiming crosshair/looking around
Mouse Left-Click	Destroy blocks, attack creatures/monsters
Mouse Correct-Click	Place blocks, use items (such as held objects, wall switches, etc.)
Mouse Scrollwheel	Switches between objects in the quick-access bar
W	Move forward, double tap Due west to sprint
A	Strafe left
S	Movement backward, double tap S to sprint backward
D	Strafe right
Spacebar	Jump, double tap to enter Fly Mode in creative (concur to increment elevation)
Left Shift	Sneak mode (quiet movement, won't fall off ledges), too used to decrease altitude when in Fly Style and to dismount mountable creatures (similar horses).
E	Opens your inventory
Q	Drops the item currently in your mitt.
1-nine Numeric Keys	Correspond to the first through 9th slots in the quick-access bar
F1	Toggles on-screen brandish (perfect for admiring the view)
F2	Takes a screenshot
F3	Toggle the debug information screen
F5	Switches the camera angle between starting time and tertiary person perspectives
F11	Toggles game between Windows and Full Screen mode

Adjacent Lesson: Improving Minecraft Performance on Computers Old and New

We've installed the game and reviewed the bones movement and function commands; you're ready to go downwardly to the business of edifice, exploring, and otherwise interacting with your new Minecraft world.

Your homework for this night is to just explore the Artistic world we made today. Fly around, get a feel for the game, and if you're not satisfied with the game functioning (every bit far as polish play and such goes) don't fret. Tomorrow's lesson is focused on optimizing Minecraft for the all-time play experience.

Even if yous have a beefy new gaming reckoner the tips and tricks we'll cover are still useful equally nosotros'll go in depth in what exactly all the settings mean and how you tin can become the smoothest experience on computers old and new.

Source: https://www.howtogeek.com/school/htg-guide-to-minecraft/lesson1/

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