It’s been a long road for indie developer Markus Persso, and after months and months of virtually weekly updates the alpha build of the popular game Minecraft is about to evolve into beta.
Known as ‘Notch’ to his fans, Markus has been implementing and fixing multiplayer aspects of the game for the past month. As he promised to fans earlier, when he was happy with a stable multiplayer build they would officially begin their beta phase. True to his word, the December 20th update will mark said occasion and launch the official Minecraft Beta.
With the update comes not just a focus on shiny new features rather than bug fixes, but a change to the pricing scheme as well: buying the game will now cost 14.95 euros, and people who purchase the beta aren’t purchasing rights to the full. They’ll have to repurchase the game upon full release. However, those who purchased the Alpha build – which is still up until December 20th – get all future updates free, which includes both beta and final release.
Notch has been toying with several ideas of late – he occasionally tweets about random things like adding capes, cake and game modes akin to Left 4 Dead, so players are excited to see what he and a recently hired team of employees can cook up. Updates will also be more spread out than the helter-skelter schedule of late, in which there was never a predictable pattern.
The last few odds-and-ends of the upcoming beta phase are summarized nicely by Notch himself:
“With Beta comes a larger focus on polish and content, and we’ll start early on with adding proper modding support with a stable API, and we’d love all input we can get on this from the modders out there. We’ll also add some kind of non-intrusive narrative to the game to help drive the game experience early on, and to provide some kind of late game goal. There will be a bigger focus on testing and stability as well, with more time between updates.”
With over 700,000 players of the game, the forums are already flaring with people wondering what will be implemented first. What do you think about the upcoming Minecraft beta phase? Are you excited? Tell us your thoughts!
Source: The Word of Notch
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Sometimes just watching videos of people playing minecraft is very soothing.
uhh say WHAAAAT
I…I understand. lol
I watch the hilarious ones. Commentary on videos and experiences for Minecraft are some of the best in gaming.
I’ve already bought the Alpha build, so I can’t wait to get in on the rest of the updates for free!
Well it looks like I better get on my horse and purchase before the 20th.
I am absolutely fuming. I am not able to buy MC until January and Im not sure if I want to buy it once if I then have to buy it AGAIN for an even HIGHER PRICE! I dont know what notch is thinking with this but it’s not a smart move. I dont believe its to pump out more money from the game so i dont know what the crap is going through his head. Maybe its some plan to get more people to buy it now instead of later.
@Timmy
Why can’t you buy until January? Something stopping you from making an online purchase?
And you only have to buy it once, you don’t have to pay anything else for the full version of the game. There seems to be some confusion going around. The only thing you won’t get for free if you buy in beta would be expansion sets if they are ever made. Patches and full release are included. Think about it, what sane person would charge for a beta then charge again once the game is complete?
Well done notch, i bought the alpha version and the 21st is tommorow. I have been at my cousins in spain and can’t wait to see the new features