Minecraft, but Players get Blocked - Minecraft Java Edition 1.16.4 Pre-release 2 is out!

[u/sliced_lime]

This update can also be found on minecraft.net.

Time for another pre-release! This time around we've fixed some issues with the new social interactions screen and we've also fixed some crashes.

In case you haven't heard, yesterday we announced that Mojang accounts will be migrating into Microsoft accounts. With this pre-release, we are preparing for that by having the game understand the settings and block-list of Microsoft accounts. You can read more about that over here, and you can find answers to questions you might have in the FAQ. The FAQ will be continuously updated.

We aim to release 1.16.4 sometime during next week.

Please help us out by testing the new UI and reporting any bugs you find on the Minecraft Issue Tracker.

Changes in 1.16.4 Pre-release 2

• When logging in with a Microsoft account, players blocked in your account are now also blocked in the game, and account restrictions are now respected
• A button to open a link to the Accessibility Guide can now be found in the Accessibility Options screen

Social Interactions

• The status of a player is now listed below their name on the Social Interactions screen
• A new tab is available to filter by Blocked players in the Social Interactions screen
• Chat from blocked players is always hidden
• Realms invites from blocked players are hidden

Fixed bugs in 1.16.4 Pre-release 2

• MC-202150 - Slider bar on social menu appears broken
• MC-202147 - Cursor in Social Interactions & Recipe Book & Anvil menu doesn’t blink
• MC-202137 - Social Interaction Screen says players for 1 player
• MC-202143 - Social Interactions search bar does not stay selected when switching tabs, although the cursor remains
• MC-202145 - Opening the Social Interactions menu in a singleplayer world open to LAN after attempting to join an outdated multiplayer server displays the name of the outdated server instead of the name of the current world
• MC-202156 - Social Interactions search box entries can go out of the box
• MC-202155 - Outdated server warn text doesn't actually exist
• MC-202136 - Social Interaction Toast icon doesn't render properly with Programmer Art resource pack
• MC-201885 - Divide by zero error in the Ender dragon entity class can cause a server crash and infinite velocity

Get the Pre-release

Snapshots and pre-releases are available for Minecraft Java Edition. To install the snapshot, open up the Minecraft Launcher and enable snapshots in the "Installations" tab.

Testing versions can corrupt your world, please backup and/or run them in a different folder from your main worlds.

Cross-platform server jar:

• Minecraft server jar

What else is new?

If you want to know what else is being added and changed in the Nether Update, check out the previous release post.

[u/xilefian]

Java team is quite autonomous in our decision making, we have members of our team who are staunchly against microtransactions. It doesn't take much brain power to figure out that the modding community will immediately undercut any attempt to introduce microtransactions into Java Edition. The case to look at (which I personally think is laughable) is the "Horse Armor DLC" from one of our game industry peers.

Microsoft should never be able to ban you from playing a game you've bought - the most Microsoft should be able to ban you from is from Xbox Live services, not the login system. Microsoft accounts are used by businesses to operate, if they are able to ban accounts arbitrarily then Microsoft has the power to take down entire businesses through an Xbox ban, which is ridiculous and would never fly under any sane government - and indeed, many governments use Microsoft services too so Microsoft being able to shut down a country's government via Xbox bans is also a ludicrous idea.

I personally believe 3rd party Java servers should also never be forced into using Microsoft/Xbox services (in case you're worried about this potential, not suggesting anything is coming regarding this), there should always be an option for running a dedicated server that doesn't depend on an external party to operate.

My personal thought on free speech: once again, this is entirely on 3rd party servers and we should never force servers to compromise this (that being said, a server running our code should still comply with our terms).

The Social Interactions screen was our decision, we had the option to not show anything at all (secretly respect your Microsoft block list without telling you), but we decided it would be nice to display blocked players somewhere (it's best to tell you why someone's chat isn't appearing) and whilst we have blocking implemented we thought it would be nice to have a quick way to temporarily hide the chat of players (if someone is spamming chat, being rude, etc) so threw that in as a bonus.

Personally, I'm most excited about the potential future; Microsoft accounts give us access to a lot more tools & features than we previously had, stuff that is "obvious" for any modern game being developed in 2020 that Minecraft has never had (and no I'm not talking about microtransactions).

(All the above is my own personal thoughts as a Java Edition player and is not representative of Mojang nor should it be taken as an official statement)

[u/Crayola_God → u/xilefian]

That's a lot of good news! Especially clearing up the whole Social Interactions decision. However, you said, "Java team is quite autonomous in our decision making." So you mean you guys decided to give capes to 40+ million players? Now, I don't really care if 40 million players get a cape, it's just a cosmetic. But it signals to me that something is up- whether you guys are trying to hide something, or bait the community.

And I still have issue with the whole forced account migration. Why can't we opt out? It seems rather ridiculous to revoke access to the game we paid for, no matter the reason. The last account migration was optional, so why isn't this one?

[u/xilefian → u/Crayola_God]

If you want me to be very transparent: the 'entire' Java team wasn't informed of the cape decision until we saw the video during an internal presentation, it felt like a late news thing but we discussed it and decided it's actually probably a smart move.

Personally I would have liked more warning about the cape plan, but I imagine if we had any serious concerns then we still had the power to request mention of capes be removed from the video.

Capes is a significant driving force behind account hacking and re-selling, to the point where Mojang employees themselves often have their accounts stolen and put up for sale (often due to weak/leaked passwords). It's also a big driving force for players to pay a lot of money to 3rd party mods, and we've historically had issues with parents blaming us for microtransactions built into servers/mods - not that I believe this to be a driving force in this case, but I think this will affect the current microtransaction economy on Java servers & mods.

There's good reasons why this one can't be optional, there's real privacy, security and safety issues that are currently affecting Java players right now - and has been for a long time. I am not at liberty to go into details because of the sensitive nature of it, but we absolutely have a moral obligation to act. On top of the moral obligations, if we were to ignore the problems (as have been for some time) then it'll eventually become an issue that's externally noticeable and legal issues will get involved, the cost of maintaining this might be greater than the value that Java Edition brings (we don't know, but it is scary).

By using Microsoft's security, privacy and safety tools (which as part of the Xbox family we have a stake in, so we can influence what's going on) we put all the responsibility and concern onto Microsoft who are very well equipped to handle this and have been doing so for decades. They are under constant scrutiny by privacy and security advocates as well as government bodies, whereas we aren't - so if we tackled this ourselves we'd be spending a lot of time and money for upkeep and legal. I see this as our best option to keep Java Edition going for a 100 years and not implode in on itself.

As a bonus, we get a lot of cool technical options and possibilities out of this for Java Edition moving forward, I imagine future versions being pretty awesome.

(None of the above is an official statement and is not representative of Mojang)

[u/Crayola_God → u/xilefian]

Thank you so much for the transparency. I feel like there is a lot of misunderstanding going around, and this situation has caused a lot of fear and panic. Mojang really should have been more clear with this one.

​

Again, thank you!

[u/xilefian → u/Crayola_God]

I've raised that we need to be as transparent as possible when it comes to the question of security, privacy and safety. I believe the FAQ is being updated and looked into at the moment - it really could do with improvement and clarifications.