IGN has posted a new interview with Notch on "The Future of Minecraft." The interviews includes the typical generic questions (inspiration, success, etc.) and some questions about the Xbox 360 and mobile versions, but also touches on the Adventure Update. In terms of new information, Notch explains that NPC villages can either be helped or destroyed, that pumpkins and the newly added melons can be grown and farmed, and that the (new) random dungeons are part of the terrain and may eventually be the location of the first boss monster.
As previously revealed on Notch's Google+, the Adventure Update will be playable at PAX (Penny Arcade Expo), which takes place August 24th-28th. Feedback from the event will be taken into account and the Adventure Update will be released once the resulting tweaks are completed.
Read some of the relevant questions/answers below and check out the rest of the interview on IGN.
IGN: Can you provide more detail on the NPC villages? How large will they be? What will the NPCs be doing there? Will they live in houses? What sorts of services will they provide, if any? Can you kill them and break their stuff? Are there a limited number of villages in someone's world?
Markus Persson: I'd rather keep this secret for now, but I will say that you can choose to either help the villages or to destroy them if you wish.
IGN: What are some of the additional farming options for the update? And can go you into detail about how the random dungeons will function?
Markus Persson: We've added melons, and made both melons and pumpkins farmable so you can grow them. Both have a central stem that slowly grows to max size. When it's max size, it will randomly spawn a fruit next to it if there isn't one next to it at the moment. We might add even more farming options if needed.
The random dungeons are part of the terrain, and will contain a reason to explore them. It's likely our first boss monster may appear in the dungeons, but we haven't gotten that far in their development yet.
IGN: Is there a release date or window for the Adventure Update? Would you be able to share it?
Markus Persson: We're taking the time to play around with this update. There's lots of playtesting and brainstorming going on, so we decided to just set a fairly distant release date for once. The first publicly playable version of the Adventure Update will be available at our booth at PAX in August. Then we'll go back, tweak it based off the feedback we get, and release 1.8.
