Minecraft 1.7.8 release addresses support for the new game skin system
Mojang, the developer of Minecraft, has officially announced the release of version 1.7.8 for Windows and Mac. The update fixes some bugs present in version 1.7.7 and 1.7.6 (released just a few day ago) and prepares the popular sandbox game to change the user name.
According to Mojang, version 1.7.8 contains some bugfixes for issues where skins weren’t loading and to help to stop the stability issues found in earlier releases. The patch also includes changes to the internal handling of player skins to make use of the new, improved skin servers.
The change to the player name function is not available yet, but the update is intended to pave the way. When it is activated, each player will be identified by a unique ID, but can change the names, assuming it is not already in use by someone else.
Users will not be able to avoid bans or whitelists by changing their names as a result as bans/whitelists will use the unique ID instead of display name.
Mojang has made several other changes including improvements Minecraft Realms, which is available in more and more countries; off-line server skins updates will be less frequent and have less impact; no need to restart the client updater skins; in the worst case, disconnect and reconnect will be enough to solve the problem; and duplicate skins (e.g., two players with the same skin) must not be uploaded several times as they are downloaded from a URL.
Most importantly, Minecraft 1.7.8 is not compatible with server version 1.7.5 and 1.7.6, so gamers are going to have to make sure that their client/server has been updated before entering into a play session.
Minecraft has struck a very powerful chord with the user last month when Markus Persson, the founder of the game, announced on Twitter that the world of Minecraft is now inhabited by over 100 million players. This figure does not include people who use the cracked version of the game.
Interested in more information? Then look no further than Mojang’s blog post on the latest release.
“Grass Block” top photo courtesy of Mojang AB
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