Now that a full year has passed since “Minecraft” received its last major update and the announcement of their adoption of a new drop system, it will be easier to see how they stack up to each other. Previously, “Minecraft,” would generally get small updates and minor bug fixes through the year and one massive content update every summer. With this new drop system however, “Minecraft,” receives smaller, more numerous content updates throughout the year.
Throughout this year, “Minecraft,” received three major drops (four if you count the “Bundles of Bravery” drop which just added one item that was originally planned to be in the game years ago) that have given the game new features. The past year’s drops “The Garden Awakens,” “Spring to Life” and “Chase the Skies,” all added some pretty interesting new features with the first adding a new biome, enemy as well as a new wood type, the second bringing visual changes such as new plants and animal textures and the third adding a new ridable creature with unique mechanics: the Happy Ghast. However, with everything going for the drop system, I can’t help but prefer the old update strategy more.
One glaring issue is that the old update system was able to generate more excitement than the drops do. The updates have a whole year to slowly announce its features which gives players a lot of time to look forward to the summer and try out the game’s new content for themselves. Under the drop system however, any hype new features could have garnered is instantly killed with there being very minimal time in between announcements and content releases. There have been even some occasions when people haven’t even realized new content came out.
Speaking of time, the updates allowed for content to have more time in development. The yearly updates gave developers a large span of time to really add to newer content and to make sure they aren’t half baked. The drop system, however, is very limiting in that regard.
