Beta 1.8 is the first release of the Adventure Update. It introduced features that focused on fighting, exploration, and adventuring, as well as other aspects.
Additions
General
- A new achievement: "Kill a skeleton with an arrow at 50 meters".
- New Creative game mode.
- New Mojang logo splash screen
- New particle effects.
- Performing a critical hit on any mob will cause 'sparks' to fly.
- Explosion particles are now shockwaves instead of smoke.
- Tiny stationary bubble particles can be seen when underwater.
- Fog is now thicker and darker deep underground, and gives off particles. Due to this, the void appears black.
Gameplay
- New combat mechanics.
- Hold-to-charge bows.
- Critical hits.
- Players can parry with a sword by holding Right Mouse
- Hostile mobs perform attack animations.
- Mobs killed by players drop tiny flashing experience orbs that add to your experience bar.
- New food system.
- There is now a food meter.
- Food no longer heals directly but indirectly: if the food meter is above 90%, heals every 4 seconds.
- All food (except mushroom stew) are now stackable.
- Food takes 1.6 seconds to consume, accompanied with an animation.
- There is now a food meter.
- Added sprinting
World Generation
- Generated structures
- New, fractal-based biome code; added and removed some biomes while making all of them more vast than before.
- New ocean floor; random mix of sand, dirt, and clay.
- Because of this, clay is much more common.
Blocks & Items
- Stone bricks
- Brick slabs and brick stairs
- Fence gates
- Glass panes
- Iron bars
- Melons
- Food
- Melons
- Raw chicken
- Raw beef
- Cooked chicken
- Steak, which has cooked porkchop's old texture. Cooked porkchops' new texture is a tan shade of the same sprite
- Ender pearls
- New seeds for farming: pumpkin seeds and melon seeds that produce pumpkins and melons respectively.
Mobs
- Enderman
- As a placeholder, Endermen used Zombie sounds.
- Silverfish
- Cave spiders
Changes
General
- Changes with debug-view (F3)
- Mobs are no longer visibly labeled with their entity ID
- The world's numeric seed is displayed in a field below player position.
- Changing fog by hotkey now requires debug-view to be open in addition with pressing F.
- The version tag appears in-game again.
- The 'Multiplayer join screen' has been improved, mainly with a server list.
- Main menu/options changes
- The main menu's background is now an animated scene.
- The version tag is now displayed on the bottom-left rather than the top-left
- New sliders for Field of View and Brightness
- 4 new entries in control list
- "Attack", "Use Item", and "Pick Block" can now be remapped.
- Player list in SMP, defaults to Tab ↹.
- The game's coding now allows for mods to more easily change the (map) height.
- Players with the OP position on a server can switch back and forth between survival and creative mode.[1]
Gameplay
- New improved lighting
- Day/night cycles no longer require chunk updates and is a smooth transition
- The lighting on a block is given a tint based on the most prominent source of light
- Reddish from artificial light sources
- Blue from Moonlight
- Total darkness keeps the same black tint
- Sunlight gives the same white tint
- Artificial light now gives a very subtle 'flicker'.
- Improved sunrise and sunset.
- Clouds change color during sunrise and sunset to match the sky color.
- Horizon, specifically haze changes color more vividly during sunset and sunrise.
- Cloud height raised to the top of the map, so clouds can no longer phase through blocks.
- Cloud movement syncs with the game's time.
- Rain and snow both render faster
- Armor bar moved to above hearts, due to food bar.
- Holding the left mouse button with a weapon will now only swing once.
- Holding the right mouse button to place blocks is slightly slower than before.
- ⇧ Shift+Clicking the output item in a crafting square will craft all the items at once, and automatically places them in the inventory.
Blocks & Items
- Eating any raw food or rotten flesh has a chance to give the player food poisoning which makes the hunger bar decrease three times as fast.
- Shears can now collect tall grass and vines
- Both Wooden and Stone pressure plates can now be placed on fences.
- New texture for moss stone.
- Improved chest model with a 3D lock.
- Improved model for torches placed on walls.
- User-placed leaf blocks no longer decay.
Mobs
- Passive mobs will randomly flee if attacked by the player or other mobs (such as wolves).
- Zombies drop rotten flesh instead of feathers.
- The snout on pigs now protrude from their head.
- Skeletons now hold full-size bows.
- Player-to-mob damage decreased by half a heart.
- Arrows that hit a mob visually "stick" into the mob rather than just disappear.
- Skeleton arrows originate from about their eyes to the bow, instead of above the head.
- Animals no longer despawn which makes it possible to capture them.
Removed
- Old Terrain was removed
- The Far Lands were removed
- Humans Commands, hacks and codes were all removed, except for its AI but then in a later update the AI was removed.
Fixes
5 bugs fixed
- The ⇧ Shift+Click crash bug from 1.8pre2 is fixed.
- Fixed Redstone circuits not working after /time set x glitch is now fixed in SMP.
- Destroying boats and minecarts now creates particles.
- Ghast attack sounds are fixed in SMP.
- The Far Lands had been removed; there is now only void.
- Fixed cactus and trapdoor items being too big
Gallery
- Cactus size.png
The bug where cactus items were too big before Beta 1.8