Minecraft Ditched Fireflies In The 119 Update So Kids Real Pet Frogs Wont Croak
Minecraft 1.19 launches today, loading up the Wild Update's new biomes, mobs, and technical changes. It's the final push of (almost) all the new features that were originally presented to players during Minecraft Live in 2020 and the last of three pretty major updates.
As always, there are no secrets on launch day as Minecraft game director Agnes Larsson assures me, as does Ulraf Vakhnin, a developer. Mojang is committed to player feedback, or else why bother with snapshot builds, betas, and release candidates-and the developers talked about some of the changes 1.19 underwent after users got involved.
The Wardens who can be dangerous have likely changed the most in the course of development. Vaknin says, "That was a place we were looking to both our technical and challenge players for feedback." I was already scared when I first played with the Wardens in their March debut snapshot. They made a very loud heartbeat noise when they agitated, roared at me, and decimated every chicken I spawned to distract them.
They now have a Sonic attack, which is a ranged ability emanating directly from their chests. This allows them to deal with players who have managed to sneak out of their long arms. The Skulk, those new snitch-y, Warden-summoning blocks found in the Deep Dark biome, also underwent changes based on feedback from players who love the redstone tech side of Minecraft.
What's new in Minecraft? Minecraft skins (opens in new tab): New looks Minecraft mods (opens in new tab): Beyond vanilla Minecraft shaders (opens in new tab): Spotlight Minecraft seeds (opens in new tab): Fresh new worlds Minecraft texture packs (opens in new tab): Pixelated Minecraft servers: Online worlds Minecraft commands: All cheats
Vaknin admits that it's a technical matter. My Cms He explains that the Skulk sensor stopped responding to the first sound that was detected in the code. "We were able to see some contraptions that people tried to build, and they didn’t work because of the quirkiness of the code. So we made it more intuitive."
Mojang continues to make a big impact on feedback. The Wild Update was not without controversy. Fireflies were originally intended to be frog food in Minecraft Live 2020.
In that video, producer Anna Lundgren explained that players had pointed out how fireflies can be poisonous to frogs. Larsson and Vaknin explained that it wasn’t just players who raised the alarm. "I got reached out to by pet shop owners who said this is already a problem with people not getting educated about this and there's memes about frogs eating fireflies," Vaknin says. "So people already make the same mistake, and Minecraft makes it even worse."
Larsson claims that "we reach millions of players." Larsson says, "And that should come along with great responsibility. We realized that if we release features like fireflies that can be poisonous to frogs and people have frogs eating them that it could lead to their real lives being destroyed."
We reach millions of people, and that should come at great cost.
While I instinctively want to defend developers' decisions about in-development feature features for almost any reason, Larsson’s more measured explanation is probably better. Minecraft has been more that a game for years. Welcome To My Blog At this point, it is also a marketing tool that serves as an educational tool. Mojang has to think beyond the Bedrock vs Java editions and PC vs Xbox interfaces when developing new Minecraft features. It also has to consider its role as an educational tool for its vast audience of young children.
Larsson claims that the new bugs were much more limited without fireflies as frog food. Mojang decided to eliminate them completely and send them back to the grand ideas catalogue. This will allow Mojang to focus on other features in the pipeline.
Vaknin is excited to see new Allay friends flying through houses and builds. Larsson is a player of my own heart. He's excited about finding new mangrove swamps to build new buildings with the reddish mangrove wooden set and mudblocks.
Minecraft 1.19 is available as a new version in your Minecraft Launcher. It comes with a long list patch notes. Today is also the day that all Minecraft users will have access to both Java or Bedrock versions of Minecraft, even if they previously owned one.
