I downloaded the minecraft pre release of the 1.8 update. If you have a valid copy of minecraft you can also get it here:
pre-release of the 1.8 update To install just replace your minecraft.jar file with this one. I recommend renaming your old minecraft.jar so if you want to revert you'll be able to just change the name back.
It is going to be a huge update and I have to say that so far I really love it. It has made minecraft better by a whole other minecraft (if that makes any sense).
First things first though. Non of my mods worked with it. Even the HD textures were a fail, however, that's to be expected and they'll no doubt be updated straight away once the release is official.
The scenery and bioms are absolutely epic. I'm pretty sure the clouds have been raised too.
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| I started out far from shore on a tiny clump of dirt but spotted this island in the distance. |
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| I had to swim to the island. |
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| I hacked some trees down for wood. |
The animal mobs seem to really like spawning in the water or up on mountain cliffs. I was forever seeing cows stuck on ledges mournfully mooing away. They don't seem to jump off anymore but just sit there too far away to even be hunted.
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| I quickly had a shelter. Here I'm eating a pork chop (right click and hold to eat) |
One thing I appreciate is that resources seem to be a whole lot more plentiful. I had a shelter, work bench, oven, coal, bed and stone tools within the first day!
There are now two kinds of meat: beef and pork - and they finally stack! It's a good thing too because now you have a hunger bar that goes down as you work on stuff:
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| The drumsticks(?) beside the hearts indicates hunger. As they go down you are more hungry. The green bar is experience which you gain from fighting and hunting. |
You'll notice on the far left of the inventory a weird globe thingy, well, I have no idea what it is but I picked it up after watching an Endermen burning in the morning sun. Endermen are a new mob in the 1.8 update that attack only if you look at them. I only saw one at a distance.
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| I decided to start digging down from where I had made a shelter. About 40 meters later I ran into this! |
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| The tunnel seems to go on for quite a distance and is full of mobs! Up ahead is an intersection with spiders and zombies! |
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| I managed to kill a spider that attacked me but His/Her bite poisoned me. The spiders seem smaller since it didn't have any trouble getting through the 1 meter doorway. |
So the spiders are now poisonous and their venom causes temporary damage. You'll heal soon enough but spiders are waaaaay more dangerous now. I like mobs and fighting so for me that's excellent news! I wanted to push on in the tunnel, however, since I had just started the game I wasn't anywhere strong enough yet. I think I need better weapons and armour.
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| I went for a boat trip and found a giant swamp with vines growing from the trees. |
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Older worlds will be compatible with 1.8 but the new terrain will only appear in unexplored parts of the world.
Anyway, this is a seriously epic update but don't just take my word for it; download it and give it a try yourself. Notch wanted to add adventure to the game and he totally succeeded. I'm having as much fun as the first day I played it.
I do have one major concern though: Notch has included a builder mode (free play) where players can fly and build stuff too easily IMO. I love cheats and mods, don't get me wrong, but this makes it too easy and newbies will be tempted to start using methods that should be left alone until the game starts getting boring. I think the popularity of single player commands led Notch to include them in this version - which is a really big mistake and will reduce a lot of peoples enjoyment IMO. But what do I know? He's the millionaire game designer not me, so I'm sure it's all good, whatever I may think.
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