Java Edition Classic

Classic is a title given to game modes released before Indev. It was the first development phase in Minecraft. This phase was unnamed until 28 June 2010, when a blog post was written to name the development phases. Creative, and later Survival Game Modes were introduced in this version.

The releases of the survival mode in Classic were conducted in a test named Survival Test. It is a very early version of the game mode. The test had a points-based system, where the player gets points from killing some of the few early mobs. Even after Classic was phased out, the Survival Test could still be played until the 16th December 2010, when the website received a major overhaul. This mode was quietly removed from the website so people took little notice of it.

The latest version of the Classic Creative game mode is, however, still playable for free on Minecraft's website. It is no longer updated and only kept for historical purposes. According to Notch, he plans on "...slowly phasing it out. I won't remove it, though. Just hide it." It is playable in both singleplayer and multiplayer variations. There are mods which have been added in the multiplayer, making the game more varied in gameplay. Some special custom game modes like Lava Survival, TNT Wars or Zombies have also been created.

Because of its outdated status, it does not support many of the main features in the current versions such as crafting, inventory, or dynamic lighting. The lack of sneaking and the addition of Wool Dyes to Beta gradually made Classic obsolete; however, many players still used Classic for building things that would take too long in Beta. It later became completely obsolete when Creative was added to Beta in 1.8.

Advantages of purchasing
Although this mode is free to the public, there are several advantages made available to those who have purchased the game. Some of them are the ability to:
 * Use custom skins in both singleplayer and multiplayer.
 * Use mods that require placement of files in the original minecraft.jar folder.
 * Build with more blocks and items.
 * Use crafting and create items.
 * Combat mobs.

Trivia

 * In the classic jar files, sprites for several mobs can be found. Playing a Survival Test map in normal Classic will preserve mobs, and also lets you have multiple blocks of the same type (or none at all) on the hotbar.
 * Classic mode uses very old liquid physics, making it possible to flood the whole map with water or lava from just one block of the liquid.
 * When mobs were added and first survival test was created, it was possible to copy some files into the game client or browser client and play it in classic multiplayer, allowing player to do same things as in survival test, but with other people and on custom maps. However, the mobs appeared in other locations for each client.
 * In Classic mode, the game world is not infinite. It is a cube made out of naturally generated blocks and surrounded by the walls with a bedrock texture.
 * When Beta 1.8 came out, Classic became silent and saving levels were now impossible because Mojang removed its resources directory and addresses it was referring to for saving, possibly as a step towards phasing it out.
 * When Beta 1.8 came out, the website received an update and classic's resource files were moved from minecraft.net/resources to minecraft.net/classic/play/resources. However, the classic.jar was not updated to look in the new location, and thus classic became silent.
 * There are bedrock barriers around the underground levels of the map that emit water. Above this bedrock is an invisible barrier (made from Invisible Bedrock?)