Mojang has released Minecraft update 1.4.6, bringing lots of Christmas surprises and goodies to the hit PC game. The big additions in this update are fireworks, enchantable books, and a "mysterious Christmas surprise."
The vague post on the blog also listed "many issues" as being fixed, including tweaks to enchantments and an option to enable touchscreen input for buttons and inventory.
Although Mojang didn't list the major changes on their site, Reddit's redstonehelper put together a list of the changes.
Game elements
- Added Thorns enchantment:
- Enchants armour.
- Three tiers.
- Deals damage to attackers depending on its tier.
- Wears armor down faster.
- Improved some enchantments:
- Fire Protection now extinguishes fire more quickly.
- Blast Protection now reduces explosion recoil.
- Protection no longer is as good as all specific Protection enchants combined.
- Added Touchscreen Mode setting:
- Mainly for inventories.
- You can drag and drop items, hold long to halve the stack before dragging.
- Added and changed many minor things:
- Made item drops and framed items render in 3D when using fancy graphics.Screenshot
- Added tool highlight when switching items in the hotbar. After switching, its name shortly appears above the hotbar – options.txt:heldItemTooltips – Screenshot
- Right-clicking while sneaking now uses the held item instead of the selected block.
- Dropping items while holding ctrl now drops the whole stack.
- Added a default resolution setting – options.txt: overrideWidth:0 & overrideHeight:0
- Added a warning for users playing Minecraft on systems soon to be unsupported (PowerPCs and Java 5).
- Death messages now appear in server log files.
- Bug fixes:
- Fixed passive mob spawn eggs not depleting when used on a mob.
- Fixed minecarts and falling entities flickering.
- Fixed using number keys on smelted items in furnaces not giving experience.
- Fixed boats always getting placed in the same orientation.
- Fixed switching between dimensions resetting the selected hotbar slot.
- Fixed leaves obtained using Silk Touch having the wrong tooltip and data value.
- Fixed /enchant not accepting Protection enchant id.
- Fixed the level up sound not playing.
- Fixed F3+B displaying invisible entities' hitboxes.
- Fixed the Wither's projectiles sometimes destroying the Nether Star.
- Fixed mobs being able to trample farmland when the mobGriefing gamerule is set to false.
- Fixed endermen not teleporting away when set on fire.
- Fixed endermen still being set on fire when hit with a flaming arrow.
- Fixed endermen not opening their mouth when attacked by other mobs.
- Fixed arrows shot at endermen disappearing.
- Fixed animals on fire not running away.
- Fixed staying underwater in Creative still causing the drowning effects.
- Fixed animals appearing to walk through fences in single-player.
- Fixed some items with multi-layer textures rendering both layers separately when on the ground.
- Fixed tools differing only in damage not being swappable in the inventory.
- Fixed some Z-Fighting with the beacon.
- Fixed a graphical issue in the trading GUI.
- Fixed /say not showing the text in the original purple color.
- Fixed Pick Block giving double slabs.
- Fixed minecarts not travelling through Nether portals.
- Fixed lightning not flashing.
- Fixed FallingSand spawners failing to save properly and causing crashes.
- Fixed the blocks in lowest layer of the map not being recognized by beacons.
- Fixed enchants not showing in item frames and on the ground.
- Fixed mobs walking slowly for a short while after being hit.
- Fixed chests becoming out of sync when a user right-clicks it twice quickly.
- Fixed flaming arrows not catching on fire immediately.
- Fixed zombies sometimes stopping their attack.
- Fixed /xp -1L not working to remove partial xp bars when between level 0 and 1.
- Fixed the cursor being positioned wrongly in fullscreen mode.
World Generation
- Added enchanted books to village and dungeon chests.
Blocks & Items
- Mob spawners:
- Can now spawn differently configured mobs with different spawn chances.
- Nether brick slabs have been added:
- Enchanted books have been added:
- Screenshot.
- Enchant books to receive a single enchant on them.
- Can be applied to items using anvils, consuming the book – Enchants can be applied to any item in Creative.
- Sold by villagers and found in dungeon and village chests.
- Can now be found in loot chests and by trading with villagers.
- Unbreaking can be applied to anything with durability.
- Efficiency and Silk Touch can be applied to shears, allowing the harvesting of cobwebs.
- Sharpness, Smite and Bane of Arthropods can be applied to axes.
- Star fireworks have been added:
- Screenshot.
- Used to create Firework Rockets.
- Combine gunpowder with dyes to get a Firework Star with those colors used for the sparkles.
- Also add glowstone, a fire charge, a diamond, a gold nugget, feather or a mob head to make the firework twinkling, big, trailing, star-shaped, bursting or creeper-shaped.
- Craft a Firework Star with dye to change the color the sparkles fade to.
- Firework rockets have been added:
- Screenshot.
- Rise up in the air and create colorful patterns when shot by dispensers or placed by players. Are not destructive.
- Combine paper with gunpowder to get a firework rocket.
- Also add a firework star to add effects or gunpowder to increase the flight duration.
- Bow:
- A sound indicates when you hit a player with an arrow.
- Arrows now render from farther away.
Mobs
- Skeletons, Zombies & Zombie Pigmen:
- The armor and enchants they spawn with now are even harder on harder difficulties. Eek.
While you can grab version 1.4.6 here, Mojang remains are hard work on Minecraft 1.5 – The Redstone Update which is set to release in early 2013.