The latest experimental build of Minecraft arrived just 24 hours after Mojang released two other early versions of the Minecraft 1.8 Update, the first of which actually introduced yet another new feature for the popular sandbox game. This, despite claims that we'd already seen all of the new content that would be included in the Minecraft 1.8 Update, and that Mojang would only be focused on bug fixes, server- and client-side optimizations until the next Minecraft patch was ready for a full release.


There isn't much new content included in Minecraft snapshot 14w30c, other than some additional banners for players to use when decorating their favoriteMinecraft world(s), but it's hard to be too upset about that fact when discussing the third new build of Minecraft to emerge in less than two days.


In addition to expanding the list of banners that can be created, the latest preview of the Minecraft 1.8 Update also addresses a new bug that caused mobs to spawn with player heads, along with a similar bug that causedMinecraft entities to render improperly when using player heads. The team also addressed a number of game crashes that weren't patched inMinecraft snapshots 14w30a or 14w30b.


Unfortunately, the Minecraft team wasn't quite as specific about the performance optimizations implemented in Minecraft snapshot 14w30c, though programmer Nathan "Dinnerbone" Adams did mention that the changes should benefit users playing Minecraft on older computer. Presumably, some of the changes will continue to improve chunk-rendering -- an area which has received quite a bit of attention from Dinnerbone in recent weeks -- but I'll be the first to admit that's only a guess.


Here's the complete change log for Minecraft snapshot 14w30c:

• - Banners
  
  • -- More patterns
    
  • -- "According to sources, Union Jack is now 18% easier to make!"
    
  • -- Maybe: Changed some terminology
    
  
  
• - More optimizations
  
• - Fixed some bugs
  
  • -- Fixed some crashes
    
  • -- Fixed the sunflower model being broken (Upper block part of stem missing)
    
  • -- Fixed entities rendering weird while using player heads or spawned mobs with player heads in MP
    
  • -- Fixed textures glitching out when looking down
    
  • -- Fixed the texture of dark acacia and dark oak leaves missing when broken using silk touch
    
  • -- Fixed low resolution resourcepacks causing the screen to flicker
    
  • -- Fixed the sun/moon/stars disappearing when using small render distances
    
  • -- Fixed a crash while tesselating block models (gravel, leaves and vines) (java.lang.IndexOutOfBoundsException @ java.util.ArrayList.rangeCheck)
    
  • -- Fixed some trees not generating right in certain Biomes
    
  • -- Fixed having a mob head in the hotbar/inventory/UI causing transparent blocks to change texture in the hotbar/inventory/UI
    
  • -- Fixed chunks not being rendered in certain angles
    
  • -- Fixed chunks not rendering behind the player in F5 mode
    
  • -- Fixed a crash when launching the game: java.util.ConcurrentModificationException
    
  • -- Fixed LightningBolt not being listed for /summon tab-complete
    
  • -- Fixed the launcher treating crash reports as modded and the bottom part of crash reports missing
    
  • -- Fixed texture flickering
    
  • -- Fixed the game crashing when loading ocean
    
  • -- Fixed the terrain behaving strangely near the world edge
    
  
  

What do you think of the changes implemented in this week's previews of the Minecraft 1.8 Update? Still having issues with a bug that hasn't been addressed by the Minecraft dev team? Have an idea for a block, game mechanic or other feature you'd like to see in an upcomingMinecraft patch?


Let us know in the comments section!