Minecraft 1.9 Combat Update: Terrain, Structures, and More
General
On April 1, 2015, the ‘Love and Hugs’ snapshot 15w14a was released. Obviously, it was just an April Fools’ joke, but hidden in the snow textures of this snapshot was a QR code. The link to this code is below, but if you don’t have a QR code reader, it reads ‘1.9 The Combat Update’. So it’s confirmed! 1.9 will be THE COMBAT UPDATE! http://imgur.com/ZGnqLdy
The reason 1.8 took so long wasn’t only because of the insane number of new features added into the game itself, it was mostly because there were loads of internal changes. Now these ‘internal changes’ are what Mojang are doing to work towards the Plugin API and are therefore great for mod-makers, but for the majority of us who are not mod-makers, the following is great news. Searge tweeted that there will be considerably less work on internal changes in 1.9, and instead, the update will focus much more on actual in-game additions and changes (as well as bug fixes): https://twitter.com/SeargeDP/status/592614501998034944
Terrain & Structures
Dinnerbone has been working a lot on the End and how it is generated. Like the overworld and the Nether, it will now be infinite (well, 30 million by 30 million blocks), and all of that space will be occupied by smaller islands. However, to access these smaller islands, you need to go through the End gateway or End gateway portal after you have defeated the Enderdragon. The new gateway portal is a bit like having a sub-dimension of the End, and exactly the way all that works is still unclear. On these islands, new ‘Chorus plants’ will generate, and an all-new (and huge) End-exclusive generated structure: the ‘Ender city dungeon’ (probably not its proper name). These dungeons contain new blocks and a new mob, all of which you can read about below.
THIS WAS ANNOUNCED DURING THE UPCOMING FEATURES PANEL AT MINECON 2015. I’ll put up a link when a proper video of the panel is available.
As well as all these new islands, there are terrain updates to the main island. These include iron bars around the taller ender crystals so that you can shoot them down with a bow, and the pillars being neatly arranged in a circular fashion around the end portal. The bedrock and torches will already have spawned when the End is loaded, but you must defeat the Enderdragon for the portal blocks and the dragon egg to appear.
THIS WAS ANNOUNCED DURING THE UPCOMING FEATURES PANEL AT MINECON 2015. I’ll put up a link when a proper video of the panel is available.
As mentioned above, there is a brand new End-exclusive generated structure, and it is huge. It is dubbed the ‘Ender city dungeon,’ although that is probably not its official name. It is made of new End-exclusive blocks and contains a new End-exclusive mob. It is still unclear what the purpose of these dungeons are.
THIS WAS ANNOUNCED DURING THE UPCOMING FEATURES PANEL AT MINECON 2015. I’ll put up a link when a proper video of the panel is available.
Awesome new feature spoiled by Jeb on 12/5/15. He tweeted about a completely new type of dungeon, apparently with ‘blocks and mobs’ just like any dungeon, but unlike any other dungeon, this one will be ‘different from other dungeons’. Here’s the tweet he sent us: https://twitter.com/jeb_/status/598094215638319104