The first Minecraft snapshot of 2016 has been released by Mojang, bringing an end to the holiday hiatus that began back in mid-December, and patch notes for Minecraft snapshot 16w02a outline the bug fixes and performance tweaks fans have come to expect on the final stretch of road to Minecraft Update 1.9.
It’s been a few weeks since we last saw a new developmental build of Minecraft Update 1.9; the latest in a string of free updates for Mojang’s massively successful sandbox game. Like many game studios, the Swedish developer gave its staff several weeks off to enjoy the holiday season. But things have largely returned to normal for the Minecraft devs, as they have in most offices around the globe, and that means its time to restart the slow march towards the Minecraft Update 1.9 release date.
On Wednesday, Mojang published Minecraft snapshot 16w02a, the first of what will likely be dozens of new developmental builds released before the end of 2016. This week’s Minecraft snapshot focuses on the various bugs, and other performance issues, that have appeared since Mojang began working on Minecraft Update 1.9. Minecraft snapshot 16w02a also continues to balance the game’s various combat mechanics, including the dual-wielding mechanics being introduced in Minecraft Update 1.9.
Here are the complete patch notes for Minecraft Update 1.9, via Jens Bergensten:
- Beacons now immediately activate when placed on valid pyramids
- "Voice/Speech" sound category in music & sound options
- More balancing of the combat related mechanics
- Marker ArmorStands will now only outline their equipment when glowing
- Fixed some bugs
- Fixed mobs being displayed outside of their spawner (ghasts)
- Fixed social zombies ignoring the doMobSpawning gamerule
- Fixed bad alignment when using wide unicode fonts
- Fixed acacia/ark oak stairs not being flammable
- Fixed eggs and snowballs fired from dispensers not knocking back mobs
- Fixed the "ø" character having an extra pixel
- Fixed spectators dropping items on death
- Fixed creepers flashing white when exploding
- Fixed zombie pigmen getting angry when hit in creative
- Fixed the GUI names for hopper/chest minecarts
- Fixed the unicode character "Small H with Stroke" (ħ) being one pixel too high
- Fixed copying written books creating 0-stacks/duplicating the original
- Fixed pressing the crouch key while flying slowing you down
- Fixed villagers accepting fewer items for the same amount of emeralds in certain trades
- Fixed invalid anvil data values causing crashes
- Fixed creeper damage being disproportionate
- Fixed old hopper minecarts having Enabled:0b/not gathering items
- Fixed pick blocking on boats always giving the oak variant
- Fixed summoned MinecartHoppers defaulting to Enabled:0b
- Fixed mobs not going up blocks
- Fixed buttons not having an assigned tool
- Fixed explosions not repelling players in creative (only for non-flying players)
- Fixed thrown items with a CustomName having blurry names when glowing
- Fixed /help in a command block showing the /effect syntax - /help in command blocks not outputs one of a few selected "Searge says" easter eggs - via
- Fixed scoreboard teamkill."color" not registering entities
- Fixed ender dragons going to XYZ 0 0 0 when spawned in any type of world
- Fixed the death screen death message not hiding when showDeathMessages is false
- Fixed console spam by "PLAYER is sending move packets too frequently (19 packets since last tick)"
- Fixed survival players being able to obtain bedrock items using end crystal race conditions
- Fixed setting LastOutput of a command block to an invalid JSON string causing a crash
- Fixed the gamemode selector m not working with negation: It's now possible to use names instead of just numbers for gamemode, so @p[m=spectator] or @p[m=sp] are both alternatives to @p[m=3]; Negation also work with both, numerical or named modes, so @a[m=!creative] or @a[m=!c] or @a[m=!1].
Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes.com and follow Scott on Twitter for more Minecraft coverage throughout 2016 and for however long Mojang continues to support Minecraft in the years ahead.
