Minecraft Rants

It may have surprised you (sing.) that for over 10 years, a game called MINEcraft only contained two different metals: Iron and Gold. Iron was the generic catch-all metal used for ALL metal-containing recipes, and Gold was... just bling, really.  Recent updates have FINALLY, after more than a DECADE, expanded on the metal roster. 1.16 surprised us all by adding a new mineral better than Diamond(!) known as Netherite. (Wait... is Netherite even a metal? That's debatable, but for the purposes of this rant I am going to say it is.) And in 1.17, the game FINALLY saw Copper be added after more than TEN years of requests. Just about every mod included Copper in a different form, making life for modpack makers much harder - so it was great to see Copper in Vanilla at last. But could Minecraft see even more metals in future? Is there room for more metals in Minecraft when Copper has barely been able to carve out its niche (thus far)? Well, yes. I do think there are several new metals we c...

Caves & Cliffs. By far the biggest Minecraft update there has ever been. Step aside 1.7, Caves & Cliffs has truly been the update that has changed the Minecraft world. It's the update we've wanted for YEARS, that, when complete, is set to rewrite EVERYTHING and have us relearn how we play Minecraft from the ground up. Complete with a far deeper underground, increased world height, 3D biomes and mountains we could only ever have dreamt of - as well as an ore the fandom has been wanting for a decade, and freakin' AXOLOTLS, it's hard not to say that Caves & Cliffs is, in a way, the ULTIMATE Minecraft update. This feels like the beginning of something truly major - the beginning of a whole new era of Minecraft. A Minecraft REVOLUTION even. The new post-Caves & Cliffs Minecraft is going to be TOTALLY different and MUCH more improved than before - so much so it could even be called Minecraft 2.0. 2021 should be the most exciting year to be a Minecraft fan. But...

Bat Bad? Since its addition in 2012, the Bat has become the subject of much opprobrium as the most pointless and useless mob in Minecraft. Serving absolutely no purpose other than existing and flying in your face, no drops, no XP, broken AI... many have questioned why this mob was even created in the first place. Heck, in my complete ranking of all mobs in Minecraft, I ranked bats as the 2nd WORST mob in Minecraft, 2nd only to the Endermite!  The Bat is the only mob in Minecraft that is purely, 100% ambient. It has absolutely no greater purpose or drops. It doesn't interact with the player in any way or have any mechanics. Even the Endermite drops XP on death, the Bat drops none. It serves literally NO purpose other than to just be there and add some atmosphere to caves. Part of why the Bat is so hated and ostracised may be because it is the only mob that is truly 100% "useless", and is one the player will encounter often. Every time we see it, it reminds us that it is tr...

Hello my one person reading this out there, it is June 8th 2021, and you know what that means???? It means it's the 159th day of 2021! How exciting!!!! It also means it was May 2021 nine days ago and will be July 2021 in 23 days!!! Exciting, fun stuff!! Oh yeah there may be some update of some game releasing today as well, but who knows as I haven't signed into Steam since 2015. On 1.17's release day, you (singular) may be wondering why of all things in the update, on this momentous day, I'm choosing to rant about the Glow Squid. Well, I think of all the things in 1.17, the Glow Squid has been by far the most controversial. And that's what we do here, right? Duck Duck Glow Squid In amongst the 1.17 hype on Discord, I asked the good folks what their favourite of the three new mobs coming in 1.17 is. I repeated the poll on Reddit. In both cases, there was a very clear pattern. At first, one mob totally stole the show, and it's completely obvious which one this was...

As time has moved on, it's safe to say 2017's sole update, 1.12, has not aged well at all. People who were around to see this update - what actually do you remember about it? Coloured beds? Concrete? Glazed terracotta? If you thought about it long enough you may or may not have remembered Minecraft has Parrots - which were added in 1.12. You may love the parrots, you may hate them, but probably you won't remember they existed. Speaking to people on Discord, one thing is clear: almost nobody can remember 1.12 that well. We all remember 1.11 added Illagers, Woodland Mansions, Shulker Boxes and Totems - even if that update wasn't the best received, we still remember its features. But 1.12? It added some colourful blocks and that's about it... right? Looking back, I've come to realise something about the most bland, forgettable and uninspired update of Minecraft: it was never really the so-called "World of Colour" update to begin with. That theme was merel...