IIRC, snow layering like this has been in the code since alpha, but Notch chose not to implement it because it took away from the game's blocky aesthetic. It's strange that Jeb has decided to implement it now, but he probably did it because it was a simple addition that only took him a few minutes.
I'm embarasssed to say its been a couple months since I played as well. I don't know, none of the recent updates and additions have really excited me like they used to.
I haven't been reading posts lately in this thread, so forgive me if you guys already talked about this, but... I read that Minecraft may be coming out for the Playstation but not likely for the new Wii U system, and... wait... Minecraft would be perfect on the Wii U. I haven't played one yet, but, from what I've seen, the system seems tailor made for that kind of game. Think about it. The tablet can show the inventory, so that doesn't need to block the lower portion of the screen. And how cool would it be to use the tablet to do crafting, instead of having the grid cover the screen... I don't why Mojang and Nintendo don't realize just how perfect the Wii U is for Minecraft.
Seems like a good point. But to be fair, it doesn't seem like anybody is developing for the WiiU right now. Its a shame, sinc eit really seemed to have a lot of potential.
been playing the 360 version for a few days, just got to the nether, what do I need to be doing down there?
Yeah, sounds like they really fouled it up this time. Supposedly fixed a lot of bugs, but from what I'm hearing, they introduced quite a few, too.
I'm actually looking forwarding to playing with all the new features (and using the Nether Quartz for building aesthetics). But I've got the white "stitching" around each block, making low-light environments exceedingly distracting - to the point where MC loses its immersive quality for me. Though, according to the bugfixes for the upcoming 1.5.1 update, that should soon be rectified.
I was so fed up with 1.5 (stitching, severely reduced performance) that I actually downgraded my version back to 1.4.7 for a while. But after 1.5.1 was released, I decided to give it a try. The results have been very satisfying. The performance isn't quite at the level of 1.4.7 for me (on my OSX iMac), but it's more than sufficient. And the stitching is gone. There are a few minor bugs (such as a glitch hopping into and out of minecarts), but on the whole, I'm finally able to enjoy the new update. It's just odd that the new version needed a rapid update to properly function.
As they did with the USB Desktop Nether Portal in 2011 and the Marshmallow Creeps last year, ThinkGeek is featuring Minecraft again in their collection of fake April Fool's Day products. This year: A Creeper Body Pillow! [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4UXkC0i8h0[/yt]