Minecraft 1.8

The 1.8 Adventure Patch for Minecraft was leaked yesterday and has since been given Notch’s stamp of approval. It’s not a polished, finished version so I recommend keeping a back up of your 1.7 minecraft.jar if you’re going to try it out. I gave it a spin and here’s what I’ve found.

Minecraft 1.8

I really like the new torch light effect. It’s warm glow is more indicative of a fire, and is similarly shared by the furnace and lava. I immediately started up a new Survival map and set about finding shelter. I opened up in the new ‘plains’ biome near a river, which is one of the other new features. I usually pummel sheep my first night to get wool for a bed but animals have been given rudimentary survival instincts and don’t just stand around to get killed. With my fists, this meant a whole lot of running around, chasing fleeing sheep and wasting precious daylight.Minecraft 1.8

After playing around in that mode for a while I quit and started a new map in Creative mode. This is the mode for sight-seeing. I took off in search of the other new features of patch 1.8 and after some flying over deserts and what might be the best ever spot in the game for a golf course (see right) I finally found a village.
Minecraft 1.8

It was, as per the PAX videos, empty. The only use I can see for one right now is setting up shop near or in one for role playing. Beyond that, they’re pretty useless.

There are a few bugs, naturally, and some are somewhat game-breaking. On the relatively benign side, oceans can be a little too big.

Minecraft 1.8

That was all I could see at one point, looking in every direction. On the game-breaking side, you can’t change any of the video settings without crashing the game. In the end, though, this is an unfinished product that’s getting an unintentionally huge beta test. You can find a list of found bugs on the Minecraft Wiki. So now you can try patch 1.8. Does anyone have a good story from it yet?