Minecraft Ender Dragon Progress To Date, Will We See Them Before Launch?

It's been only five days since Notch announced dragons would be coming to Minecraft.  It was easily one of the most unexpected announcements to come from the Minecraft creator, especially considering the whole Bethesda/Zenimax and Mojang "Scrolls" trademark case going on.  But would you expect anything less than a slight jab at the studio taking him to court over a silly name?  Still, dragons are coming, and not even Bethesda's Skyrim can stop them.

Dragons have clearly been on the Minecraft's radar, even before this whole court case fiasco. And as you can see from the rapid progress shown in constant updates from Notch, it's something he's really excited for and passionate about.  But with the October 18 "Code freeze" deadline looming, many are wondering if the Ender Dragons, as they are now called, will make an appearance in Minecraft before the official launch in November.  My guess is, yes, they will be ready and implemented in some upcoming pre-release.  Judging from Notch's recent updates, they are already modeled and textured. 

Before we get into the current, let's have a quick recap at where we started from.  Notch released an initial model of the dragon on October 7 when he first announced he was working on them.

Minecraft Ender Dragon

From there, Notch worked over the weekend adding scales, black tint, and purple eyes.  On Monday, he already revealed the full dragon model and announced he began working on animating the dragon.  Shortly after, he released a video of a dragon flying in "The End", a new dimension being added which players can access by traveling through portals found in strongholds.  Rumor has it that "The End" is home of Endermen, introduced in Update 1.8, Ender Dragons, and large obsidian obelisks.  Players supposedly access these portals by crafting Eyes of Ender.

Enderdragon

As you can see, Notch has already made a lot of progress with the modeling and animations.  But what about behavior and difficulty. 

"My design guidelines for the dragon: If I can beat at all, it's too easy," Notch announced on Twitter.  Notch clearly has some sick ideas for this dragon.  "The dragon phases through terrain, and is 100% invulnerable now. Now to make it more difficult.. Hmm.."

Notch isn't that mean of course.  I mean, he is, but he wouldn't add something that can't be beaten…would he? Today, he confirmed, "After release, I will totally work on slightly less dangerous dragons that don't destroy terrain and can land and whatnot. They will be red." So it looks as if, right now, there will be two types of dragons.  Ones that destroy everything and that you should stay the hell away from.  The red ones seem to be more like Pete's dragon.  I prefer the latter.  I hope those invincible dragons stay in The End.

Also today, Notch and other developers successfuly tested The End in multiplayer.  Notch confirmed on Twitter, "The End now kind of sort of works in multiplayer, yay! Tomorrow, I make the ender dragon work in MP."

So that's where we are right now.  We got The End dimension sort of working in multiplayer.  And tomorrow we find out if Ender Dragons work in multiplayer.  I think tomorrow will be a good indication if we will see Ender Dragons implemented in Minecraft before the code freeze.

Judging from his "I'm nerding out so bad over dragons right now," I think Notch will get them out in time. 

Are you excited for the whole "End" dimension and Ender dragons?   Or is Notch over-complicating a once simplified game?