Turns out we were wrong :/

It looks like we were wrong about The Blockheads not dying. At the time, we debunked MGN's proposition as being 'clickbait' and that MajicDave wouldn't be going anywhere since he never confirmed anything. Now he has.
http://majicjungle.com/blog/524/

I'm pretty sure that you've read this blog post already, but if you haven't, check it out.
Nobody is certain what this means for The Blockheads, even though a month has passed since he 'semi-retired'. Currently, the game is for sale to any developers who want to continue development of the game. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like any developers are interested. MajicDave has hinted about a 1.6.1 uptade to fix some bugs (e.g. Physical usable Time Crystals, many duplication glitches and other major expliots). Until then, servers will be ridden with duplicated riches and infinite time crystals. People are even selling them in shops! Let's all hope that a 1.6.1 update comes soon.

-Sam.Boyer

The Blockheads isn't dying, and here's why:

Before reading this post, it might be worth checking out J Lav's 'Is The Blockheads Going To Die?' article.

So, now that we've all calmed down, let's have a look at some of the evidence to prove that The Blockheads is safe. These are taken from David Frampton (MajicDave)'s Twitter page in reverse chronological order (newest to oldest).

The first tweet was posted very recently, most likely in reply to the #savetheblockheads campaign:

Don't worry, I'm not shutting down The Blockheads, just focusing on something else for a bit.
— David Frampton (@majicDave) December 30, 2014

Another tweet is from the 24th November, just after Dave started working on the prototype for his new game (He was at the stage of a papercraft icosphere):

This time last year I planned to spend 2014 working 50/50 on new game vs. Blockheads, and it ended up 100% Blockheads. Might happen again!
— David Frampton (@majicDave) November 24, 2014

The next one isn't specifically about the new game or development ceasing, but it's an interesting thought about how long The Blockheads will be around for:

Today I renewed the blockheads domain name for 9 years. The amazing thing is that I actually believe it will live that long.
— David Frampton (@majicDave) October 16, 2014

This one's from way back in February 2014:

Been working on Blockheads full time for over 2 years now, and it just gets more enjoyable and rewarding.
— David Frampton (@majicDave) February 19, 2014

Even in January 2014, MajicDave was certain that his game would be a long-term success:

It's pretty amazing, where Blockheads has settled at the moment. I wanted to start work on a new game, but I think that would be crazy now.
— David Frampton (@majicDave) January 28, 2014

Not that I'm complaining! It'll be a lot of fun carrying on putting all my development into Blockheads.
— David Frampton (@majicDave) January 28, 2014

If that's not enough evidence for you, read this tweet from December 3rd 2013:

When I start work again in the new year I plan to split my time 50/50 between Blockheads updates and a new Unity game.
— David Frampton (@majicDave) December 3, 2013

Since that tweet we've had 1.5, 1.5.1 and 1.6. This may show that Dave has so many ideas for the game he just can't stop making new stuff!

But that's not all. We've scoured through every tweet MajicDave has ever made, through all the dusty shelves and boxes and found this ancient tweet from 11th December 2012, before the game was even released:

@BinaryBlobs haha haven’t even thought about it. Most likely I’ll continue adding to Blockheads for quite some time :)
— David Frampton (@majicDave) December 11, 2012

If all this evidence isn't enough for you, then I suggest you flee to a tibetan mountain and meditate until 1.7 is released.
oh yeah, there's bacon too!

Is The Blockheads Going To Die?

The short answer to this is simply no.

The longer one involves twitter, clickbait, and a lot of confusion.

On the 27th of December 2014 the following was tweeted as a reply to another player asking about majicDaves new game.

@piequals3_14 I'll keep maintaining The Blockheads, but I'm not sure at the moment when/if I'll start working on more new content.
— David Frampton (@majicDave) December 27, 2014

This tweet was caught by someone at MGN and the following video was posted:

http://youtu.be/NpAQ6P7QSNw

MajicDave said he wasn't sure if/when he'll work on more new content. This is normal, 1.6 only recently came out so it wouldn't be expected for Dave to start working on 1.7 immediately. Dave also said that he'll keep maintaining the game, which means the Cloud and bug fixes are definitely being continued.

The video tried to start a campaign, with people tweeting "#SaveTheBlockheads" to @majicDave.

WE WANT BLOCKHEADS! WE WANT BLOCKHEADS! CMON! ALL! WE WANT BLOCKHEADS! #SavetheBlockheads -=MGN=Haven @majicDave @mjTheBlockheads
— MGN Clan (@MGNClan) December 30, 2014

There were only four tweets under the tag as of the time of writing, because the video is quite recent.

MajicDave then tweeted this:

Don't worry, I'm not shutting down The Blockheads, just focusing on something else for a bit.
— David Frampton (@majicDave) December 30, 2014

The main point of this is, unless something is completely comfirmed by majicDave, The Blockheads isn't going anywhere and a small reply to another persons tweet doesn't mean something is definitely true. There isn't anything to worry about yet, and if The Blockheads was stopping then Dave would have clearly stated it, instead of giving a vague-ish reply to another tweet.

~Jlav

Sam.Boyer Reaches 4'000 Subscribers, Posts BH Adventures!

One of the most famous YouTubers for The Blockheads, Sam.Boyer has reached 4'000 subscribers on his channel!

He posted 'Blockheads Adventures' to celebrate, along with a VLog, which you can see below!

http://youtu.be/h0dqaWaPzJs

~Jlav

BREAKING: Yacht Crafter leaving the forums

THE BLOCKHEADS - Long-time member of the forums Yacht Crafter has announced his leaving of the forums.

He has been a member for over a year, joining in early July of 2013.

He posted his resignation about half an hour ago.

He says that he will continue beta testing but will only play on some private servers. According to Yacht, control of his servers will be transferred to Cameron343 and he will not run in the election to lead TNR.

-Cheeseburger, Blocky Herald

Blockmarket Daily Price Roundup!

(This is a trial feature which may or may not continue.)

1.6 has been out for several days now and, as we get into the weekend where younger players will have more time to play, prices are skyrocketing in certain areas! This is all the current prices, followed by a short analysis.

The price of oil is high compared to pre-1.6 levels but still very low compared to fuel. You can make a lot of money through buying oil, crafting fuel with it, and selling the fuel. There are also other good ways to make money here, so take a look at the graphs and check blockmarket.theblockheads.net for up-to-date prices. Oil is the best thing to get right now, and will be for a while, so buy some oil, make a flax farm and craft then sell fuel for the most money.

~Jlav

Full writeup of 1.6!

1.6-The Takeflight Update!

Dave just released the brand new 1.6 update-AKA Take Flight! 1.6 brings many interesting changes, such as majic islands, titanium and...JETPACKS!!! This post should cover all the new additions!

Tweaks and Minor Additions

This update really brings some polish to the game that wasn't completely there before. Lighting seems more realistic and shadows are beautiful. You can now grow tulips and place tulips of different colours near each other to mix the colours, so a blue and yellow tulip may become purple with a yellow accent. This is a fun mini-game and experimenting with it can present some beautiful tulips which will make florists more florist-y and less like greengrocers. 

Backwalls now only appear if there is another backwall within ten blocks below or if you place two blocks. This makes removable platforms a little redundant but you may still need them in some cases. In addition to this, you can remove backwalls with the correct tool type. So mined stone backwalls can be removed with a pickaxe and dirt with a spade. However, natural stone backwall cannot be removed this way.

You cannot add items to a shop without collecting any profits now. This can be frustrating but it stops shop abuse from happening. In addition to this, placing a chest/shelf/safe/cabinet inside a shop will drop the items out. This is because buying chests from shops caused lags and deleted items. This may be annoying but it's better than refunding customers.

There are many more tweaks and minor additions mentioned in the changelog right below this post.

This should be enough to round up the tweaks of the update. Now it's time for the main features, starting from really exciting to firing money at your screen even though this app is free.

Benches

We have three new benches in 1.6! These are the composter, the electric sluicer and the refinery. In addition, there is level seven on the tool bench, level four on the craft bench, level three and four in the armoury and level five in the workbench.

-Composter: Use twenty of any grown natural object to make one compost. Easy for faster compost as well as much cheaper compost-Trade Portal prices are high!

-Electric Sluicer: Have a lot of stone lying around? The electric sluicer gives you a random ore from gravel, made from stone, including the two new rare ores. This may be the easiest way to get these new ores as they are extremely rare to get through mining.

-Refinery: In this bench you make fuel, the items required for carbon fibre and carbon fibre itself. Fuel is used with jetpacks, carbon fibre to make jetpacks along with various other uses.

-Electric Press: It's a press that uses electricity and makes gravel for the sluicer. Faster than normal press.

The upgrade to the craft bench makes carbon fibre blocks and jetpacks!

The workbench upgrade makes the new benches.

The tool bench upgrade makes titanium pickaxes-The speed of a diamond pick without collecting billions of stone. Of course you may love stone now because of the sluicer-and titanium swords. These are both almost indestructible.

The armoury makes titanium and carbon fibre armour. These are the same strength but Carbon Fibre is MUCH cheaper! I recommend carbon fibre armour as it both matches up well with jetpacks and it is considerably cheaper.

COINS-MONEY-GOLD!

Trade portal prices are mad so to help with all the money you get from selling items, there are now platinum coins, worth 100 GC. This means that instead of a diamond pick costing 10000 GC it costs 100 Platinum Coins. To avoid confusion with Portal Chests we'll be calling it PLTC here.

Ores

There are two new ores as well as changes to ores spawning.

-Titanium and Platinum ores: Super rare! Platinum ores are worth lots of money, and the blocks have a rainbow effect while titanium is super strong!

-Ores now spawn in large groups together. This includes flint and clay.

THE HEADLINE FEATURES: JETPACKS AND MAJICAL ISLANDS

These are the main parts of the update: Flight and islands.

Flight:

-Craft new jetpacks that let you fly! Makes moving around more efficient, quick and fun. You can tap to use a jetpack or use your devices gyroscope and tilt to move!

-You can shoot people with gold or normal bows from the sky! This is really fun for PvP gaming!

-Majical islands are now found when flying-you may find islands with a tree growing gems...

This is my favourite part of the update. This will help many with admining a lot because we can fly above griefers. It also adds an amazing gameplay element Jetpacks are expensive to craft and buy, and so is fuel,  so you may want to create a large flax farm. 

“But it'll die and my stuff will be stolen!”

Not anymore because...

OTHER HEADLINE FEATURE:OWNERSHIP SIGNS

Ownerships signs can be crafted by admins at a trade portal with 3 gold and a sign. These will create a field around an area that prevents griefing. Every block inside this zone is indestructible. However you can still see inside chests and shelves so be careful and use safes and shelves! This means that server owners don't have to build out of steel all the time-you could even make an indestructible dirt hut if you were insane enough.

Paired up with compost, which now means trees won't die, this makes a perfect way to grow plants that no one can kill and it won't die of old age, only admins and the owner of the ownership sign can kill the plant.

That wraps up our 1.6 roundup but a full feature list is below! More explanations will be out over the next few days helping you with all the new stuff!

New in 1.6:

- JETPACKS! You’re going to need a lot of oil, electricity, and titanium to make one, but then YOU CAN FLY!

- New floating islands in the sky! These will appear in new worlds, and in unexplored areas of existing worlds.

- New hanging vines, and colorful tulips

- Mining/digging speed with bare hands and primitive tools is now faster

- It’s now twice as fast to craft all items! 

- New shaders and lighting for an improved look

- Adds platinum coins (worth 100 gold coins each), as well as platinum ore, ingots and blocks.

- Adds titanium ore, ingots, blocks, armor, swords and pickaxes.

- Adds carbon fiber blocks and armor

- Adds glass and black glass stairs and columns

- Adds a new electric press which is faster than a normal press, but also allows you to crush stone into gravel and gravel into sand

- Adds the new electric sluice, which sifts through gravel to find ores

- Adds ownership signs, which protect a 31x31 area so that only the assigned player and admins may modify it.

- All columns and stairs are now crafted at the builder’s bench, which replaces the stonemason’s bench

- Plants and trees grown in compost no longer die of old age

- Compost is now created at a compost bin, and can be made out of most organic items

- Ores are now clumped together into larger deposits

- Back walls are now only created if there is another solid block or back wall within 10 blocks below

- Back walls can now be removed by using the correct tool for the block type

- Text now appears black on light painted signs or shops

1.6 is available now-download it as soon as possible!