Minecraft was released in 2009 and since then has been updated constantly. Updates have added new worlds, new creatures, modding tools and more. But finally, after 10 years of waiting, Minecraft finally has composting.
Sure, the last major update for Minecraft added cool underwater sea life, but can a dolphin turn useless plants into fertiliser? No. Instead you’ll need the new composter block. This new block, which was added in the latest PC snapshot update, allows players to turn old plants and veggies into useful bone meal, which in Minecraft can make plants and trees grow faster and bigger.
The new composter can be built using a few pieces of wood and fencing. Once built players simply throw in some unwanted seeds, plants or food into the wooden box. Once enough organic materials has been added players are able to harvest some bone meal. How plants and seeds become bone meal is just another strange Minecraft mystery. Best not to think about it.
Fans had already created mods adding their own custom composter blocks into the game, like this mod added last year. But now composting is part of the vanilla Minecraft experience.
While the new composting block is useful for turning excess crops into bone meal, players are also using the new block for decorations purposes. Some Minecraft fans think they look like bee hives and are using the compost blocks as fake bee hives.
Currently, if you want to do some composting yourself, you’ll need to play the Java version of Minecraft and activate snapshots in the Minecraft launcher. Though like most snapshot features, these compost blocks will be added to other versions of the game eventually.
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5 responses to “Minecraft Finally Adds Composting”
Why though? Scratching my head at this one. They should leave the small odd bits to mods, focus on larger content updates for official patches. I’ve only recently fired up minecraft again to play it with my kids but it needs some kind of caving/mining update. All the exploration stuff they’ve added over the years has made that aspect of the game feel much more fresh than going caving and finding the exact same resources I saw 5 years ago.
Given the massive financial resources now behind the game, what I find most amusing is that in the four years since Microsoft’s purchase we’re still only seeing these dicky little mod-like updates on an infrequent basis. Are we sure that the game isn’t still being tinkered with exclusively by Notch in his spare time from a basement somewhere?
I think the issue is trying to keep all the different version up to date. Once they make a change, they have to update the codebase for a whole heap of other versions too.
I think it comes down to the game itself. It’s designed and works best largely for children of a certain age. I think MS are approaching it from a “its already a classic and is timeless, lets not break it”
I’d much rather it made dirt (or at least the resulting ‘compost’ or ‘bonemeal’ be turnable into that) for Skyblocks…