Minecraft adding 'creepy' Endermen mob

Markus "Notch" Persson has described a new Minecraft enemy called the Endermen, coming to the game with the Adventure Update.

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Minecraft is getting a new enemy, described by creator Markus "Notch" Persson as "possibly too creepy." Describing the creation of the new 'Enderman' enemy, Persson explains what goes into making a new mob and how the process shifted the creature's behavior along the way.

The Endermen mob is described as dark, with "long and narrow limbs." It "moves very slowly, and will pick up blocks and move them around." The first iteration felt like a regular zombie, so he made it move faster and deal more damage, but something was still missing.

Persson concluded that consequences for your actions make them more scary, so he started making the Endermen react violently to looking straight at them with the targeting reticle. "You can keep them visible on screen and actually look straight at them in real life, but as soon as your character looks straight at them, boom." But then, he says in a blog post, it was "more scary than creepy."

The solution was apparently to keep the violent reaction, but delay it. "So to really drive home the point of looking at them being bad, I made the Endermen freeze and turn towards you when you look at them," he said. "As long as you look straight at them, they stand perfectly still and look straight at you. As soon as you look away, they will run (very fast) towards you." Plus, to close long distances, they can teleport. Creepy, indeed.

The new mob is supposed to come with the Adventure Update (aka moved to Beta 1.8). If you want to give Minecraft a shot without committing to buying it, you can get a limited-time free trial with the current Humble Indie Bundle -- along with the five other Bundle games, of course.

[Ed. Note: We've corrected an error that stated 'Adventure' was coming in update 1.7, it was recently pushed to 1.8]

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  • reply
    August 1, 2011 12:30 PM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Minecraft adding 'creepy' Endermen mob.

    Markus "Notch" Persson has described a new Minecraft enemy called the Endermen, coming to the game with the Adventure Update.

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      August 1, 2011 12:32 PM

      Correction: Adventure update will be Beta 1.8, not Beta 1.7.

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      August 1, 2011 12:35 PM

      or better known as the ghosts in the ghost house in any Mario game

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      August 1, 2011 12:35 PM

      So pumped for this. My boss just got into Minecraft, so we talk about it sometimes. It's really interesting hearing a new perspective from someone who avoided all the update problems.

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        August 1, 2011 12:52 PM

        Tell us about his perspective.

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          August 1, 2011 12:58 PM

          Well, he doesn't really know anything about Notch or his development process, so that right there is a big difference in how he looks at Minecraft.

          I'd really have to peg him down and ask about his experience, but for the most part our conversations about it have been me talking with him about the Adventure update, the new Endermen mobs, and stuff like the old Duke Cities.

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        August 1, 2011 1:43 PM

        got my boss into it too, now we have a server with 2 Xeon x5650's and 32gb ram dedicated to our minecraft server... usually it's just him and his daughter.

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      August 1, 2011 12:37 PM

      Wonderful, they took the idea of Weeping Angels from Doctor Who. That episode (Blink, season 3) caused me to look over my shoulder constantly, and be paranoid for a month, always at night, after seeing that episode for the first time. I'd rather not relive that in Minecraft...they should make that creature optional by just checking a box on how scary you want monsters to be, which should be separate from the difficulty level.

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        August 1, 2011 12:44 PM

        Wuss. :)

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          August 1, 2011 1:22 PM

          Hahaha, so you're saying that the moment you saw the weeping angels, you wanted to be best buddies with them and buy them drinks, hitting on drunk chicks at the bar?

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            August 1, 2011 2:09 PM

            You're saying this didn't happen? Fo' shame dawg.

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            August 1, 2011 4:37 PM

            I'm not saying they weren't creepy. I'm just saying their creepiness only lasted about 5 minutes after I finished watching the episode.

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        August 1, 2011 12:44 PM

        That's a better description than the Mario ghost element.

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      August 1, 2011 2:29 PM

      I can't see shit in that screenshot.

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      August 1, 2011 3:51 PM

      They look pretty cool.

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      August 1, 2011 6:47 PM

      Can someone please explain why this game is so fun? After watching people play it I can't see how it is fun in any way.

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        August 1, 2011 6:50 PM

        1) Exploration/Discovery
        2) Building/Creativity

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        August 1, 2011 6:52 PM

        Ever play with Legos?

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          August 1, 2011 6:58 PM

          Maybe its the graphics I can't get by, I know graphics don't make gameplay but there is a limit.

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          August 1, 2011 6:59 PM

          Yep, got it all over my hands as a kid!

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        August 1, 2011 6:57 PM

        It's a massive sandbox lego-style game. You can build your own world brick-by-brick while fighting monsters and trying to survive.

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        August 1, 2011 6:57 PM

        In creative mode it isn't very fun to me. In adventure mode, lots of fun. Finding unique structures and finding a massive cave is very very exciting. Some of these caves you can get very very lost in and it terrifies you a bit. You can dig upwards and possibly dig up into the ocean if you're not careful.

        Then you take everything you mined and start building a structure. That hillside over there would make a neat waterfall, so you make one. It's a lot of fun. The only downside is that unlike games like dwarf fortress, there's zero point to your building. You get the same "safe from monster" effectiveness just burying yourself in the ground as you would from a massive castle.

        Hopefully your structure will be put to the test in the near future.

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        August 1, 2011 7:18 PM

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