Hello, I'm Agnes, and today Henrik and myself
will talk a bit about the Caves & Cliffs Update and why we have split it into two releases, and we hope that we will be able to clarify
some things around the split as well. So the Caves & Cliffs Update will be released in
two different parts. So one is a summer release, and the other one is a holiday release. So
that one will be released end of this year. There are three main reasons for us to split
the update in two. The first one is quality, the second one is technical complexity, and the
third one is super important and it's team health. To ensure quality, we have decided to release
some of the features in the Caves & Cliffs Update in holiday instead. And this is
because for us, the most important thing is always to deliver as much player delight as
possible. And we have realized that if we don't release some of the features, the
more complex features, in holiday, there's a risk that they will not be in a good
enough quality and then it will not be an as great experience. And of course we always want
to provide you with the best possible experience. Hi, I'm Henrik. As Agnes mentioned, one of the
reasons why we're splitting this update into two, is because of technical challenges. This
update is huge - we are changing the very shape of the world in Minecraft,
adding massive mountains, epic caves, and changing the height of the world in
order to fit these things. This is tricky, it touches the core of how the world is generated.
It's also tricky for performance reasons, because there's just more going on
when the world is higher. So we've decided that we don't want to rush
this, we want to make sure that we give this the time it deserves. While at the same time,
we realize that there's a bunch of features that don't involve changing the way the world
is generated, so we decided to split it, and put those parts in the summer update and then put
the world generation parts in the holiday update. Team health is something that's very important
for us. With the Caves & Cliffs Update we realized if we're gonna release all the features
in the summer, we would have to crunch a lot. And we shouldn't, and we don't
want to force anyone to work overtime. We also want to acknowledge that we all are living
in a pandemic right now, and we know that many have been affected by that. So it’s much better to
make sure that the team feels as good as possible and are as happy as possible, because then we can
be happy and be creative and create a good game. So how exactly are we gonna split
the features across the two updates? In the first update, for the summer, we're
gonna focus on the blocks and the mobs, and not so much world generation. So
blocks would include biome blocks such as dripleaf, pointed dripstone, glow berries, and
some building blocks such as deepslate, etc. And mobs will include the axolotl, and the goat
and the glow squid. Most of the world generation is in Part 2, but there'll be a little bit in
Part 1 as well, such as generation of copper, geodes, things like that. The second part is all about world generation. So
that's where you'll find, for the holiday update, the new caves, the new mountains,
and the new world height, as well as the actual placement of the biomes. And the reason why we're doing it that way is
because the technical challenges I mentioned are mostly all about world generation, so
that's where we want to give it more time to make sure we get it right. Plus, it makes
sense to put all the big world gen changes into one update to make it easier from a player
perspective, when you're gonna upgrade your world. For us it's very very important to be respectful
to old worlds, and that's of course true for the Caves & Cliffs Update as well. So you will be able
to update your world, both to the summer update and to the holiday update, and there
should be no problems. And I mean, this is super important for me as well, I
think my world is more than ten years old and I would get so upset if I couldn't play on
it! So yeah, definitely, you will be able to play on your old worlds and you will be able to
continue to play on them for many many more years. Regarding testing holiday features in the
snapshots and betas, so that is still possible, however we have turned them off, the default is
that they are turned off. But you can turn them on so you can continue to test them and provide
feedback for us because we want to continue to get feedback, because we will continue to develop
these so that we can release them in the holiday. So you can read in the description of the video how you turn those features
on in the snapshots and betas. So there is one feature that is postponed even
after the holiday release and that's archeology. And the reason is that archeology
is a complete new system, which is very exciting, but that means that
we really want to give it the time it deserves so we can make it fun, inspiring, delightful
and Minecrafty. So therefore, it's postponed. When I was fiddling around with dripleaf, tweaking it, I noticed that I couldn't stop
playing with it, and I started calling in my kids and we were goofing around and laughing. And
one thing we've learning in the team is that when you can't stop testing a feature then you know
you're onto something. And a lot of features in this update are like that. So I really hope
you're going to enjoy it as much as we are. So the summer update is very focused on mobs and
blocks. And I'm so happy that you actually will be able to get almost all the biome blocks in
survival, even in the summer update. So myself, I'm already like, oh so ok I'm going to find a
moss block and then I'm gonna bonemeal it so I get all the vegetation, blocks from the lush
caves and then I can build a park in my realm or a fancy garden. So I really hope that all
of you also will be inspired by these blocks and mobs and will be able to just have a lot of
fun and be very creative even during the summer. And we are very happy that we actually can release quite many of the features already in the
summer, because we know that many of you have more time to play games in the summer,
and then we want to be able to actually give you something new so you can have extra fun
when playing Minecraft in the summer as well. And we really really hope that all
of you are as excited as we are about the summer release, and that the
wait for the holiday release is worth it. Thank you so much for watching and see you soon.
An important thing to note is that during minecon they showed a new "archeology" system where you could brush off gravel and dirt to find resources and pieces of clay pots and stuff. This is no longer coming in either part of the update. They said they still want to do it, but it would be very difficult to make this new system on top of everything else they are doing, so that feature is delayed indefinitely.
I paid like $15 for this game 11 years ago and it still gets substantial free updates, it's hard to get upset.
Essentially - easier-to-implement features planned to launch in summer, world generation features and others planned to launch in holiday
You know, I'm really impressed about a lot of these more recent updates, I've said "Woah, this is the most significant update the game has have had!" quite a few times now.
Glad they're taking a stance against crunch, regardless of what people want. I can't say it hasn't killed my hype a lot but I'd rather they have an ethical workplace than deliver a product I want sooner. Hopefully more people give this visibility, I think it's good to hear that companies like Mojang have working conditions like this as opposed to the horror stories from CDPR.
I’ve had a Minecraft itch, but I’ve been waiting for this update to get back in. I was looking forward to having a summer surge of minecraft and host a server with friends.
Oh well, what are ya gonna do. If it’s not done, it’s not done
So I'm waiting on this update to fully get back into Minecraft, I've fiddled around on xbox game pass and had a blast, but didn't want to commit to a world before the generation totally changes.
A little dissapointed that I'll have to delay my inevitable jump back into Minecraft, but I can totally understand the delay. I think it's cool that they're splitting the update down the middle, and I hope that that split allows them to stay healthy and polish the shit our of the generation half of the update.
Really looking forward to this one.
Is it just me or is hard to tell her expression from her face? Like it's happiness, sadness, anguish, disappointment, fear, etc. all in one.
A little bit excited about this one, I always wished that they did more with minecraft when it first came out, it took ages before some proper patches arrived. Never the less this is pretty cool!