Minecraft players have already made impressive constructs with the tools the game provides. Soon, though, they'll have a powerful new toy to play with. Pistons introduce the ability to move blocks, opening up a number of potential new inventions ranging from simple doors to complex motion-driven machinery. Count on this: Minecraft players will quickly figure out how to do more with them than initially considered.

Pistons will arrive as part of patch 1.7, which the game's creator, Notch, says will be out soon in his latest blog update. To get it out, though, that's about all 1.7 will have besides a couple of new bug fixes. The long-awaited 'Adventure' update has been moved to 1.8 and Notch says. "it might be a long wait, but it will be worth it."

Beyond that, the development team will be getting down to readying the full release of Minecraft for November. When exactly that will be hasn't been set but Notch says that it will almost certainly be sometime the week after 11/11/11. "We want to make a big spectacle out of the release where we involve fans and celebrate it properly," he says.

Oh, and apparently he likes F.E.A.R. 3.