Minecraft 1.9 Pre-Release Available! Talk of the Adventure Patch 1.10, and a New Friendly Snow Biome Mob!

Well color me all sorts of surprised.  I thought it would be weeks before another update, and already Team Mojang has released Minecraft Beta 1.9 Pre-Release as well as mentioned there will be another patch before November, 1.10!

We’ll do a 1.9 pre-release today, and a full release after feedback. More Adventure Mode content will come in 1.10, we’re splitting it up! (source)

Shortly after, lead programmer o’ Minecraft Jeb posted the link!

Minecraft Beta 1.9 prerelease can be found here, http://assets.minecraft.net/1_9-pre/minecraft.jar (server jar also available) (source)

According to Notch, they are doing another push to get the content out before November, but hearing about splitting the content into yet another patch is surprising.  NPC Villages will have villagers in 1.9, but they won’t do much. (source) Also, possibly the goofiest of news, Notch revealed a new mob, the Snow Golem!

Currently it has been stated that the mobs will be friendly and craftable by the player! (I’m predicting the recipe to be three blocks of snow, two sticks, and some coal ^_^) Currently they will follow you around, spreading snow where ever they go, but will melt in warmer biomes.  They also can throw snowballs, but since snowballs do not actually do any damage, it just annoys other hostile mobs and becomes a bit of a ranged meat shield.  Perhaps we can heal them with snowballs like how we can heal wolves with food?

On the more daring Adventuring side of things, Jeb has been hard at work adding more stuffs to The Nether!  Two new hostile mobs are on the way for that zone, with one being a re-texture attempt.  Add in the new bridges or ruins or whatever they are that he added just the other day and the Nether is finally getting some life back into it!

Two other random tidbits I found were that Endermen are apparently no longer going to be able to move blocks. (source)  If they still can in the future, it will be extremely limited.   Also, the mushroom cow I posted a link to yesterday is going to be called a “Mooshroom.”  Ha!

So that’s all we know for now, but sheesh!  This is just the Pre-release and it’s like four hours old!  Can’t wait to see what they add before it becomes an official Adventure patch XD

Minecraft Monday – PAX Prime Is Over… I Can Has Patch 1.8 Nao?

It came and went.  But man was that a buncha news in a short amount of time!  I kinda feel spoiled, actually.  I mean, I summed up the two livestream videos they posted and mainly the first one gave me pretty much all the information they handed out the rest of the time there.  And that video was recorded before it even officially opened doors.  I’m glad for the information, I just was hoping for a bit more juicy bits to come down the line.  Luckily Ben found an IGN video with just enough new stuff in it to tide over my anxiousness for 1.8 to finally be patched in.

There is some great info in that video.  Notch mentioned the night will be much brighter than it currently is and even to help older monitors like the one I have, there will be a ‘dimmer switch’ of sorts that allows you to raise or lower the gamma and brighten up the place to your liking.

More footage of the click-to-charge bow and that it can even crit which is nice.  As he killed things they dropped plenty of xp spheres which leveled him up and granted him three skill points per Ding.  There is nothing to spend them on, but there will be.  (Likely the combat upgrades I mentioned a bit ago.)

Some new combat mechanics I was not aware of is that if you attack while nearing the ground after a jump, that attack will always crit.  He used it on some cows, but the point was made.  (Poor cows!) He also showed off how far you can punt people with the dash attack, which was a pretty sizeable distance.

He also mentioned that the patch is likely going to be split in twain and released in two segments as it is getting too big for a single update.  The things we saw will likely be in 1.8 which Notch said will likely arrive in “a few weeks.”  Note he said a few and not one or more, so we are looking at the very least, two weeks before it goes live.

One thing for the Creation-minded folk out there is that he quickly scrolled through the items available to place when you are playing around in Creative Mode.  Most of the stuff looked familiar, but I took a few screen shots and pasted them into a glob for you to take a gander’.

In the first section you can see new half blocks.  Likely sand stone (though it looks very much like sand) brick, and even a half block of that new gray stone brick that ruins or strongholds seem to be made of.  (Picture to compare if ya like.)  These look nice, and I’ve been wanting new half stone blocks for a while now.

The second section shows new stairs as well!  Brick, cobblestone, and possible that new gray stone brick stuff.  Kinda hard to make out even though it was a high quality recording.

The final section is the most exciting because it deals with food!  (My Chicago roots are showin’ don-cha-know!) Apparently the new ‘melon’ we can grow will actually be watermelon!  (I wasn’t sure if it would be honeydew or even cantaloupe when he first mentioned it, but now we know.)  Also you can see the new beef and chicken, as well as rotten flesh which zombies now drop instead of feathers.  (It looks like beef jerky next to the records.)  What I’m curious about though is the white and black fleckles beside the watermelon and meat.  New seeds?  Chocolate chips?  Perhaps the new items that you can add to your tools and make them stronger Jeb mentioned?  I dunno, but it intrigues me  ^_^

Quite the news well for most games out there, and Minecraft was not a disappointment in the slightest.  Seeing still images is one thing, but watching it ‘come alive’ in video and seeing the landscape from different view points really shows how the game is changing for the better.  I can’t wait to get in and charge around and spend skill points and all that with 1.8 or even 1.9 drops.  I’d like to explore the new biomes but even check out the NPC villages.  (The town well and blacksmith, in particular.) I’m still waiting to fight through a stronghold mingled with a ravine, but I’mma have to wait a bit longer.

How about you guys?  Anything you can’t wait to try out?  The improved and integrated Creative Mode got your interest?  Or maybe the vast new content for adventuring is more your style?