Lantern (disambiguation)

Lanterns are planned crafted objects which were originally planned to be introduced in the Halloween Update. This feature was delayed because of the lack of time and will be implemented in a future update.

With the addition of the lantern, Torches will flicker out and must be relit with the Flint and Steel. The lantern will serve as a permanent source of light. According to Notch when the update occurs, ALL torches placed on the map, in the inventory, and in Storage Chests prior to the update will be converted to lanterns. To do this, the lanterns will use the (former) block ID of torches along with a re-skin.

The Glowstone introduced in the Halloween Update is a potential item requirement to craft lanterns, as it has the greatest luminance as a raw material. This would also make lanterns relatively inaccessible and a risky item to get, as has been hinted at by Notch. A second potential item that might be required to create lanterns is Netherrack, it being a block that never burns out whilst lit.

On November 11th, 2010 Notch hinted via his Twitter account that lanterns are no longer planned as a craftable item. However, this may have been a joke, as indicated by the "winking" smiley face in the Lamps post.

On January 13th, 2011 Notch said there would be lanterns but they are postponed. On January 20th, when he was asked when they would be implemented, Notch replied that he's "not sure".

Lanterns are supposed to be able to produce light as they are being carried making it a useful thing to have when cave exploring. Notch might allow it to be hung but he is not sure. He also stated on Twitter that he would not add torches as a mobile light source because he didn't like how it looked.

Trivia

 * Lanterns will use the same blockID that torches use, so any currently placed torches will automatically change to lanterns.