Minecraft Pre-release review and info

Beacon blocks, Night vision and server command blocks!

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ZaphodX
Retired Moderator
Level 70 : Legendary Warrior
Posted 09/22/11 9:29:27 am , last updated: 08/09/12 5:26:48 pm
09/22/11

These days I play Supreme Commander, which is probably the greatest RTS you've never heard of!

I do daily uploads of gameplays, replays and tutorials - check out my videos you might like them :)

Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/ZaphodX1

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Unfortunately all the old nostalgic pre-release info from beta 1.9 onwards is permanently lost because of the size limit of blogs.

1.4 Pre-release 1

Download and description: Mojang Blog post

A little bit of info on the upcoming 1.3.2 update is that it will only be bugfixing the worst bits of 1.3, so no new content. Pretty good in my opinion, I would rather they stabilised it to a playable state first.

The first 1.4 pre-release does have some new content though!

Zombies, skeletons and zombie pigmen have enchanted armor and weapons.
Villagers turn into zombies when killed by a zombie.
Villagers trading has been changed: Villagers will not like you if you hurt them and like you if you trade with them more. By doing different trades with the villager can cause them to restock old sold-out trades.
Large trees now generate their branches with rotated logs

A Zombie Villager, wearing armour:

'Beacon Blocks'

In-Game they are called 'Work In Progress' This is an interesting new addition, no crafting recipe for it yet. By using either gold/iron/diamond/emerald blocks you can make pyramids and place the beacon block on top. They emit light and Every 4 seconds they give an 8 second buff to any player within 24 blocks.

To turn it on put an ingot/gem into the block and select your chosen buff, then press the tick button.

As you build the pyramid higher more buffs become available to unlock:

Level 1:

Speed (speed boost), Haste (Faster mining speed)

Level 2:

Jump Boost (Can jump 5 blocks), Resistance (Defense boost)

Level 3:

Strength

Level 4

Secondary power: Regeneration

Command Block

The only way to get these is with the "/give 137 1" command. This is a magical block, when powered by redstone it will perform a server /command. You can perform a server command such as /give or /gamemode. Fantastic for adventure maps and servers. So many options for what it could do. Can also target the player that triggered it, a random player, or all players.

Night Vision Potion

This greatly increases your night-time vision, even on 'moody' brightness it looks like dusk and on 'Bright' it looks like daytime.

Before/After:

Older 1.3 Pre-releases

Older 1.3 Prereleases

Final 1.3 Pre-release

Download and description: Mojang Blog post

This is the final pre-release, it will essentially be the same as the release. Get it on it now while you wait for August 1st to roll around ;)

1.3 pre-release 13 features:

Download: Jeb's Blog post (Client and Server)

Well 1.3 is really close now, This is the final snapshot before the pre-release. This is pretty much what 1.3 is going to be like. Changes since the last version:

Chatting should now work ok even if the server is lagging
F3 now shows your feet and your head level
Logs are now rotatable
Creepers now do more damage, but the damage scales depending on your difficulty. Creepers on hard mode can reduce you to 2 hearts with full diamond armour.
Explosions now give knockback
Reduced XP from furnaces
Lots of bugfixes and optimisation

1.3 pre-release 12 features:

Download: Jeb's Blog post (Client and Server)

Once again, nothing fantastic but at least we are slowly moving towards a release. The official release date is set for August 1st. Even though it's taking ages for 1.3 to come out, I'm glad they have a lot of time to iron out a 1.3 release that has minimal bugs. Check out the blog post above for a great big summary from Jeb that is well worth a read. I'll just highlight some of the notable changes in this snapshot:

Further optimisation to try to reduce the increased resource requirements
Changes to fix bugs with pistons. However this unfortunately seems to change the way they act and will break some piston systems :/
Boats now drop boats when broken
Signs stack to 16 and the recipe now makes 3 signs instead of 1 (Awesome!)

1.3 pre-release 11 features:

Download: Jeb's Blog post (Client and Server)

Nothing exciting this week, just more bugfixing and smoothing out of the game. You can tell 1.3 must be pretty close now. Notably they have finally patched the sand/gravel duplication bug and spawners can now spawn charged creepers and Villagers with preset trades.

1.3 pre-release 10 features:

Download: Jeb's Blog post (Client and Server)

This week continues with a lack of new content but some tweaking and fixing. Seems boring but it does also mean that 1.3 is probably coming soon. Maybe 2 weeks now?

Addition of Multiplayer options and interface for single player worlds.
Pigs now drop 1 - 3 pork instead of 0 - 2
Finally there are 4 types of wooden stairs.
If you start drowning, the damage no longer prevents you from reaching the surface
Villagers now run out of resources and eventually remove their trades as they run out.

Thanks to Gawfield305 for this explanation:

Command: /publish

What pops up on sp screen: [persons PC name]-Port:[numbers]

What other players type on Direct Connect is what you see on your screen after you do /publish.

1.3 pre-release 9 features:

Download: Jeb's Blog post (Client and Server)

Again, this week seems to be mostly some bugfixes and improvements. Based on the bugfixes in the last 2 snapshots we are probably getting towards a release of 1.3 soon. Perhaps a week or two now?

Single player servers are now in their first (buggy) working version. Invite a player to your single player world using /publish
Ender chests in SMP now have an inventory per player
Levers can be placed attached to the bottom of a block
Loads of little bugfixes

1.3 pre-release 8 features:

Download: Jeb's Blog post (Client and Server)

Mostly some bugfixes and improvements with this weeks snapshot:

Lv 17 and above enchantments are now slightly less linear again (higher levels are harder)
Mining ores gives 3 times less XP
Tripwire is now triggered by any entity, including arrows. Also the maximum tripwire distance is now 40 blocks.
Boats are now faster and easier to control
You can now see other players breaking blocks in SMP.
You can now see enchanted items in SMP
Numerous bugfixes / gameplay tweaks

1.3 pre-release 7 features:

Another week, and another update! After last weeks update, it's not like it can match up, but it seems mostly like a polishing snapshot, improving and fixing various aspects. That being said, there are some very cool new additions - read on!

Download: Jeb's Blog post (Client and Server)

Simple stuff:

Can now make a block of emerald
Creative inventory has been rejuggled and improved a bit, including naming different wood blocks to their respective wood type, armor, potions and crafting as well as a delete button
Pausing in single player works again :D
Various small changes and fixes including minor terrain generation changes
Improvements to placing half slabs
Rain drips through leaves
Smelting with a lava bucket doesn't use up the bucket anymore

Interesting stuff:

/gamemode 2 now puts you into adventure mode. It's still totally unfinished but it's nice to see it there. Adventure mode is mostly useful for hardcore survival scenarios or adventure maps. You cannot break or place blocks in adventure mode, but you can interact with switches, doors and villagers. This will really help with control and design of adventure maps, and be a somewhat more immersive experience in my opinion.

Enchantment system has been rebalanced. It isn't perfect but is a massive step in the right direction: Level 50 is now reduced to 30, you get more lucky, dont have to cycle through enchantments to find the highest level anymore, and mining ores and smelting can now give experience orbs.

New Jungle temples to add to the list of randomly spawned structures. Includes traps :3

Villager trading has been improved, the option to trade two items is now available, as well as new trades. In the picture below you can see you can trade armor for enchanted armor. Villager trading is really starting to take shape now as something that can actually be useful rather than a bit of a gimmick.

Tripwire hook! Oh yes, so very cool. Place tripwire blocks apart from each other and then place string on the ground inbetween them to join them up. Your tripwire can be up to 19 blocks long. Once the tripwire blocks are connected, if you step onto any of the tripwire string, a redstone pulse will be emitted from the block attached to the tripwire blocks. Obviously it is useful for traps, but it can also be used for intruder warning systems or automate any other function you want - turning on a light, opening a door, playing a doorbell, just about anything you can think of!

The new golden apple is here! It takes 8 gold blocks and an apple. To be perfectly honest it is REALLY powerful even though it's cost is very high! So what does it do? It gives you 30 secs of really powerful Level 4 regen, 5 mins fire resistance and 5 mins of another ability I do not know - it looks like boosted defence maybe? If any of you know, please let me know in the comments!

1.3 pre-release 6 features:

Wow! What a bumper update this week! Since they've had 2 weeks to work on this snapshot, we have quite a few changes.

Minor changes:

A few terrain changes
Sandstone stairs
Various minor fixes/changes

The interesting stuff:

Emerald

A new ore! Emerald! It is currently red, but this is just an error, and it will be green when fixed. It is incredibly rare currently, making diamond look as common as coal. Emerald is approximately 40 times rarer than diamond and only spawns within certain biomes.

New currency and trade system

Emerald forms the new currency item, and the ability to trade with villagers you find. Lots of great future possibilities with this! Just right click a villager and trade some emeralds for whatever they are offering. Different villagers have different trades, and returning to the same villager can give you new trades to choose from! You can also trade them your items to get more Emeralds.

New building

An interesting new random temple can spawn in desert biomes, For the moment I think it seems mostly empty. I'm not going to spoil it for you, but there are some hidden traps and chests there! The chests also give particularly good loot, and if you're clever you can also harvest some of the materials used in the traps :D

Ender chest

This is cool, I'm very fond of it. The Ender chest is a magic chest with a persistent inventory across worlds. What does this mean? It means you can make multiple ender chests anywhere in the world, or the Nether or the End, and they share the same inventory - you can place stuff in your Nether chest, and then take it out from your home chest. Alternatively, you could make an Ender chest in the End and withdraw wood you had already stored there.

In SMP, every Ender chest is linked, rather than having a seperate ender chests inventory for each player. This is to avoid it being too overpowered. From what I can analyse however, this is useless as anything you put in an Ender chest will merely be stolen by someone else!

6b Changes

The 6b hotfix has fixed some bugs that prevent you from playing single player and made the emerald ore green like it should be. The new creative inventory adds a much easier tabbed way to view different types of items, and even allows you to search via name: