Elytra sounds are now ready, so we bundled them with a few bug fixes and decided to make a Minecraft 1.9.1 pre-release available for everyone to test these changes.
Most of us are going to San Francisco next week to attend GDC, so we will release Minecraft 1.9.1 in two weeks.
Notable changes:
Added Elytra sound effects
Improved AI
Improved entity selectors
Tweaked cooldown mechanics to be less confusing
Applied paper patch 0078
Loot tables now also work in dispensers and droppers
Hoppers can now pull items out of blocked chests
Increased limit for “executed command blocks per tick”
The arrow struck the shield with a impactful “thud!”. Steve peeked around the shield’s edge and saw the arrow was wrapped in a note! Steve excitedly pulled it loose to see what it said…
“You’re happy you had that shield, aren’t you?”
And yes, Steve was pretty happy.
Minecraft has been updated to 1.9! It contains a lot of changes. Most remarkably, the combat mechanics have been updated to make fighting more interesting and offer more map-making options. Here’s a almost complete list of the new and changed features:
Added shields
Attacking now has a “cool-down” delay, making it more important to time your attacks
You can now hold items in both hands (default quick key to swap items is ‘F’)
Swords have a special sweep attack
Axes have a special crushing blow attack
Added the elytra
New mob: Shulker
Expanded The End
Added Chorus plants
New Purpur blocks
New End Rod block
Added dragon head block
Ender Dragon can be resummoned
Added beetroot and beetroot soup (from MC:PE)
Added grass path block
Added igloos
Armor protection values have been lowered
Added tipped arrows
Added spectral arrows
Added Frost Walker enchantment and frosted ice block
Added a whole bunch of new sound effects
Added sound effect subtitles
Brewing Stand now requires Blaze Powder to activate
Added skeleton riders
We believe we’ve fixed MC-10 and a whole bunch of other issues
Minecraft 0.14.0 is out! Skin Pack, livestream and more!
Hey hey!
We’re happy to let you know that the first update of the year for Minecraft: Pocket Edition and Windows 10 Beta Edition is now out! So what cool things are there? Let’s take a closer look!
Like previously talked about we got some nice additions for you Redstone builders and adventurers. Repeaters, maps and item frames among other things will help you in your building adventure and assist you making greater things, but be aware of the witches that may lure you into wrong paths…
We got a new skin pack out as well! Since we want you to build great things, we also want you to look great while doing so. These Redstone Specialists skins are inspired by the builds we’ve seen you create and I think they look great. We hope you’ll like them as well. The Artisan and Composer are free and if you’d like to buy the whole 15 skins it costs $1.99 (or equivalent).
With all these awesome things, we’re also inviting you to our livestream we’re having later today at 10 a.m PST (I think that is 19.00 here in Sweden). You will see the Minecraft developers Tommo, Daniel, Shoghi and Jason competing on a tricky Redstone puzzle map, made with today’s update. You’ll be able to catch the livestream on our YouTube and Twitch channels. Make sure you’re nice to the guys. The puzzles are supposed to make you think, so it can take a while for them to figure things out. If you’re up to the challenge you can download the map they’re going to play here (and mirror here: redstone_puzzle_map.zip)
So yeah, that’s it for now! In case you’re wondering where to get this electrifying game you can grab it on iOS App Store, Google Play, Amazon and the Windows Store.
It is time to stop waiting and start playing. A pre-release of Minecraft 1.9 is now available. We are very excited to enter the final stage before the new version is released.
First the answer to the most asked question: We are currently planning to release the final version of Minecraft 1.9 next week, on Thursday, 25th of February 2016.
And now to the usual release notes. Once we release the final Minecraft 1.9 update, we will also provide a complete list of changes between Minecraft 1.8 and Minecraft 1.9.
Notable changes:
Bugs fixed
Increased durability of shields
Some crystals in the end are protected by cages again
Witches! Make sure you’re avoiding the splash potions they’re throwing at you! They can make you move slower or even poison you. Spooky stuff!
Armour dying. Tired of the usual look? Why not try the other 10 000 000 colours? Put your pants in the cauldron together with a dye and enjoy the new design!
Item frames. Show off your adventurous loot or put up one of your maps to remember the endless journeys.
Pumpkin and mob head hats. I know it is a bit early for Halloween, but at least now you can prepare properly! :)
And numerous bugs has been squashed, and unfortunately some have probably been sneaking in as well.
Witches! Make sure you’re avoiding the splash potions they’re throwing at you! They can make you move slower or even poison you. Spooky stuff!
Armour dying. Tired of the usual look? Why not try the other 10 000 000 colours? Put your pants in the cauldron together with a dye and enjoy the new design!
Item frames. Show off your adventurous loot or put up one of your maps to remember the endless journeys.
Pumpkin and mob head hats. I know it is a bit early for Halloween, but at least now you can prepare properly! :)
And numerous bugs has been squashed, and unfortunately some have probably been sneaking in as well.
Some bugs in the game are more annoying than others. So we decided to take care of some of the bugs that were good candidates for winning a “most popular bugs” contest. We are very sorry for closing tickets with a large fan base. These issues will be missed, but we are relatively sure that their fans will find other interesting bugs to follow.
We are also getting very close to the first 1.9 pre-release. Please make sure you vote on the most severe bugs in the bug tracker if you want to make sure we look at them before releasing 1.9.
Notable changes:
Better riding mechanics for boats, horses, minecarts and saddled pigs
The elytra texture now defaults to the cape texture if no custom texture is uploaded and the player owns a cape
Some sounds are sounding better now
Some sounds are sounding different now
Most sounds are still sounding exactly as before
Most entities in the game should now move much smoother
Villagers are not making fun of players anymore when nobody is around
Update: Minecraft snapshot version 16w05b is now available in the launcher.
This weeks snapshot contains only few fixed for bugs reported on the bug tracker. We started looking at the Realms integration to make sure everything is up to date with the changes that were introduced during the lifetime of the 1.8.x versions.
We also started automating more of our internal workflows. It doesn’t make much sense to mention that here, because it’s nothing you can see in the game and it only makes our lives easier as developers, but for the sake of having a slighly longer post this week I decided to keep it in here.
Notable changes:
Fixed some bugs
Tweaked boats a bit more
Hidden a small recipe change
Endermites or now 2.44% more happy than before, especially in boats
: minecraft 
