minecraft

The Adventure Update is upon us, and ito s nawesome and huge. So huge, you might need someone to help you find out nwhat you need to know about it. Thato s where Crafthub steps in with thisn article.

To make exploration more rewarding, and to nmake it easier to implement more new terrain features, Mojang has nchanged the way biomes are generated in the world. This means we now nhave much bigger, more unique biomes, but this also means some old ones nareno t here anymore, like all the snow biomes. These will be added in n1.9.

Oceans were also added as a new biome, and nthey are giant. They do however have lots of different little islands inn them, so there isno t a vast empty ocean like some expected. Swamps weren also added, they are flatlands with more water and vines growing on then trees. They also seem to generate an abundant supply of mushrooms.

Ravines have been implemented, which spawn nrandomly and cut through terrain. They usually look really epic, but nthey can also be small, so dono t expect each and every one to be huge. nWorld generation also has buildings now, and those buildings are nstrongholds, villages and abandoned mine shafts. Strongholds are giant nversions of dungeons. They are made of stone and mossy bricks (new nblocks) and contain iron bars (also new block), and contain different nrooms (libraries, jails, hallways) that can have a spawner and/or a nchest inside. These are extremely rare, and only 3 exist on each map. nAbandoned Mine Shafts are generated as a part of the cave system, exceptn they contain rails, cobwebs and wooden pillars. They also have a new nmob, the poisonous spider, in them which can only spawn there. It can npoison you on hit, which makes you lose health over time for a short nperiod.
nFinally we have villages, which dono t have villagers in them yet, but nwill in 1.9. Villages are generated randomly in flat areas, and have a nfew houses, farms, a well, a blacksmith and a guard tower (not all nvillages have all buildings, though).

Future biomes include the return of snow nbiomes, giant mushroom biomes and possibly volcanoes. You can however ngrow giant mushrooms by using bonemeal on regular mushrooms. Giant nmushrooms are not flamable.

The Endermen are a new hostile mob added ton the game. Youo ve probably heard about them. They are tall, black nhumanoid mobs that spawn during the night and burn during the day, much nlike skeletons and zombies. They are passive until you look at them (asn in place the crosshair over them.) When you do, they freeze, and they nattack you as soon as you remove the crosshair from them. They can nteleport so they are a bit hard to hit.
nTheir major weakness is water. When they are in water, damage is dealt nto them as if they were in lava, and they also die in the rain. One of ntheir powers is also picking blocks up and moving them around, and they ncan do this with almost all blocks (including bedrock, yes scary). They ndrop an ender pearl, a new item.

Experience and leveling has been partially nimplemented. You can get experience orbs and level up by killing mobs, nbut you cano t spend it on anything yet, this, like villagers for nvillages, is coming in 1.9.
nThe amount of experience needed to level up doesno t seem to rise with nlevel, but since experience and leveling is being tweaked and finished nfor 1.9; this may be changed. You drop your experience on death, like nitems.
nUnfortunately, building and mining does not give any experience yet.

Notch has coded a new lighting system for n1.8 which now uses textures instead of chunk updates to render light. nThis is huge news for netbook owners, as Minecraft is now much less nlaggy at sunsets and sunrises, not to mention how much more beautiful nthey look. This also means light is colored now instead of just being nwhite, so torches give out a slightly yellow light while the night is nmore dark blue than pure black. On a related note, clouds are now above nbuilding level, so the times of clouds going trough your buildings are nover.

A major part of The Adventure Update are ncombat tweaks. And there a lot of them. Critical hits have been added, nthey deal 50% more damage, and happen when you hit a mob while falling. nYou can now block with swords which reduces the damage inflicted by 50%.

The bow has been tweaked, and now has a ncharging animation. The more you charge it the further it shoots and nthe more damage it deals. The ability to sprint is also new, and it is nactivated by double tapping forward and keeping it held down. When nsprinting you move 50% faster, your FOV (Field of View) is bigger and nyour hunger bar drains more quickly (more on that in a while). When you nhit an enemy while sprinting it throws them back more than a regular nhit. While sprinting and jumping you can jump 4 blocks in length.

The way you eat food has also been changed nforever. Well at least in Minecraft. Food now no longer fills your nhealth, however a new part of the HUD, the hunger bar, is filled every ntime you eat. When it is full you regain health slowly, however when it nempties, you start losing health according to your difficulty level n(Down to 5 hearts on easy, 1 heart on normal and killing you on hard.) nEating food now also takes time and is accompanied with a nice new nanimation. Food is also stackable (except for mushroom stew, for some nreason), to balance things out.

Remember Minecraft Classic? Well now you nhave something like it in Minecraft Beta. When making a world, you get nto pick whether you want it to be Survival or Creative (no way to changen this yet except with external tools). In creative mode, you have ninfinite blocks and instead of your inventory you get a HUD in which youn pick items to place into your hotbar so you can place infinite amounts nof that item/block. Flying is enabled (though without a cloud effect nthat was in the initial image Notch posted) by double tapping space. nServer admins can switch between game modes with a command (o /gametype nplayername 0/1o ³ 0 being survival and 1 creative).

But thato s not all. The Adventure Update nalso adds a lot of other cool stuff. The Main Menu has been updated withn a dynamic background and a better logo, you now have a server list in nthe Multiplayer menu, there are some better key binding options (for nmouse commands), a FOV option slider, a brightness slider (even though nthe game is brighter now than it was before even on the lowest setting).n Explosions have a new particle effect, and so do some other particles. nBedrock level now makes your field of view shorter regardless of light nlevel, and the void has been replaced with a particle effect. A new mob,n Silverfish has been added, but ito s extremely rare. They generate fromn blocks found in strongholds. Silverfish are hostile and can call upon nother nearby Silverfish nearby. Melons were added and are farmable, and nso are pumpkins. Animals have an AI change so they now run away when youn first hit them. Fence gates have finally been added, and are extremely nuseful. Pigs have a new improved model, which is just a fancy way to sayn they have snouts.

As you can see, The Adventure Update is huge and awesome, and we will be playing it for a long, long time. Ito s available right now, and is surprisingly not buggy, probably due to the huge amount of bug reports filed by pre-release players.