Yesterday, Notch revealed that he was ” “hoping (HOPING!) to release something tomorrow.” Today, Notch confirmed via Twitter:
“We’ll do a 1.9 pre-release today, and a full release after feedback.”
As for what fans can expect in the release, nothing has been revealed in detail, but both Notch and Jens have been slowly leaking information about what the 1.9 update will bring to players.
“Designing a villager mob. They won’t do much in 1.9, but at least they will spawn with (new) villages.”
Minecraft developer Jens Bergensten revealed yesterday, “Finished most of the nether stuff, which includes two new hostile mobs (one is the retexturing attempt). No screenshots since you’ll be able to see them yourself tomorrow (knock on wood)”.
While we can only guess as to what those mobs could be, yesterday Notch leaked some images of a new “Snow Golem”. While this is a new creature, I don’t think it’s one of the “hostile mobs” Jens was referring to. The Snow Golem “will be craftable, is friendly, and throws snowballs at enemies.” These new “funny” mobs, as Notch described them, will throw snowballs at creepers and spiders, annoying them to attack the snowman. Though the snowmen leave a trail of snow behind them, they melt in hot biomes.
According to Jens, you’ll most likely run into “a new mob that will (nearly) force you to get better upgrades. If you want to fight it, that is”. Update 1.9 has been dubbed the ‘Nether’ Update, possibly introducing more nether items, blocks, and enemies.
The pre-release will also hopefully address a few bugs from the 1.8 ‘Adventure’ Update, “like a few annoying lighting bugs, like fences under walls and such.” 1.9 will also address the newly introduced Endermen and the “horrible idea” of having the Endermen pick up blocks and carrying them around, sometimes vandalizing your cool creations.
Oh no, it’s the Endermen!
Of course, some of these updates might be split up into the second part of the ‘Adventure’ Update. Notch concluded today that “More Adventure Mode content will come in 1.10, we’re splitting it up!”
To sum it up, we have 1.9 pre-release today, followed by a “full release after feedback.” While we don’t know what the pre-release will contain, hopefully the full 1.9 update will address all of the 1.8 Adventure bugs, Endermen gameplay, and introduce the two new mobs. After that we have Part 2 of the ‘Adventure’ Update introducing more Adventure Mode content in Update 1.10.
Were you able to keep up? I’m sure the devs and Mojang are trying to rush out as many updates as possible now that the official release of Minecraft is a few months away.
