Just a few days ago we discussed another new Minecraft feature Notch was working on: The Sky Dimension. This world, if we can call it that, is by all indications another dimension not too dissimilar to that of The Nether. Whether you can travel to and fro the sky world to regular land remains to be seen.

The best part about this neat little Minecraft gameplay addition is that Notch confirmed it would be another addition to the game and another bit of content coming with the anticipated Minecraft 1.6 update, which we now know will be out this week!

In April, we learned that Notch would be the only member of Mojang working on Minecraft as his right-hand man Jens Bergensten had been assigned to another project. That would mean work on the addition of the Piston's mod would stop and it would be a long while for the next update to release.

We were also told the next update wouldn't add much to the game in terms of content, but instead would work towards polishing it and implementing a large amount of bug fixes. Over the last several weeks however, Notch has been working on adding some new cool stuff to the game, not the least of which are mini-maps which can be used to chart new territory and share with friends on multiplayer.

Notch also added working portals in multiplayer so groups of players can explore/attack/mine The Nether and earlier today, he finally revealed the release date for the Minecraft 1.6 update.

"1.6 is aimed at Wednesday. Which means we'll probably release it late Thursday."

He continued to explain that there's a long list of 78 bug fixes coming with this update, including a change to fire so it doesn't spread infinitely. He also tweeted today about working on network issues which is mostly caused by terrain loading, something that can't be easily fixed without developing a new way to compress the data.

When the update comes out, we'll have a full guide to explain all of the changes and new feature, so stay tuned!

Minecraft exits beta status on November 11, 2011 and the 90-minute Minecraft demo is available now.

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