So I looked at the new 1.9 snapshots..

Ok, limited time but one message during my break shouldn't hurt. Many people are curious about the End (and rightfully so!) so let's add a some extra details. (I'll do nice centered formatting and such later this evening).

End - extra details

Before I continue: keep in mind guys that these snapshots are basically alpha releases. Anything can change and there are probably also dozens of bugs in here. If you read my first post you'll see how I noticed that picked up items didn't go into your "passive hand slot" but straight into your main inventory (and were kept separate). That was a bug (which has been fixed now).



This is where you begin in the end. Every time I take the End portal (this is after I defeated the dragon) you'll end up on this obsidian platform. Therefor: if you venture into the End you'd better bring extra enderpearls and/or building materials with you, otherwise you'd be stuck here (you can't jump towards the main land, you'd drop into the void). Still; this could be different for other levels / seeds, haven't tried that yet.



That small island you think you saw above isn't a small island but an extension to the main island, as shown here. No infinite islands to be found here.



To get to the other End islands you'll need to throw an enderpearl into the "teleporter". I'm flying here, but as you can see from my distance from the main land; this will take you quite a bit of skill (or you can of course simply collect End stone and build a bridge, it's what I'd do).



Here I've taken the portal and I'm on the 'other' side of the void. Check my coordinates for details (its why I left F3 on).



I've flown to another End island (which was within viewing distance). As you can see the sizes vary heavily; this island doesn't have any structures on it.



If you just defeated the ender dragon then the End portal (to go home) appears but it will also show a pink / purple beacon / glow to point your attention to the new teleporter (as I call it). This shows that effect, but it isn't the teleporter (I ran into this by accident, and I'm glad I did).



This is an End ship (?). They appear randomly, you'll need Enderpearls to get here and they contain some loot (at least one beacon, what a bunch of vandals we are! ).



All hands on deck



The loot.



To the left: a corridor / pillar of one of the new End buildings, to the right the End ship. As you can see: if you stand on the edge and throw an enderpearl you should be able to teleport here.

And that's all I have time for now... I showed most pics. here, for the full overview (12 in total) see here.

Well, to be honest: when in doubt don't try this at home. Keep in mind that this is alpha code and theoretically it could ruin all the save files you have (my experiences are less drastic, but there is always a risk).

So if you are going to try this stuff out yourself start by making a backup (reserve copy) of your saves folder. I'd also recommend not to try this with existing worlds but always start by making a new one.

Anyway; I'll write up a guide on do's and don't when messing with snapshots later this week.

I can see beacons costing about 10k less in the relatively near future (measured in Aikar time).

Kinda 50/50 from what I've seen ;P

HOW DID YOU GET 1.9!!!???????!!!???

1.9 snapshot. Not 1.9. Go to edit profile (on the launcher) Then use 15w31a snapshot

Ok, thanks.

And so the snapshots keep coming in. In case you're wondering how to try a snapshot yourself then I
suggest looking at my last guide.

Snapshot 13w33d

I took a new look and I was positively surprised here. Because not only can we re-spawn the Ender dragon: it also serves a purpose to keep her around And before you wonder: yes, the latest snapshot confirms it: the Enderdragon is female, from the original changelog:

• Told the dragon that you all called her funny names, so now she’s extra angry.

Lingering potions

Before this snapshot we had 2 potion types: regular ones which you could drink, and splash potions which you could throw and 'splash' on someone. Now there's a whole new set of potions, and you'll need the Enderdragon's help if you want to make these:

A lingering potion is basically a potion which will apply a status effect onto a certain area. Anyone who runs through that effect will be affected as soon as they get into contact with the particles. I'll show you what I mean. Here I'm throwing a splash potion, I count to one and then I took the screenshot:

No surprise here, right? The particles show for a moment and then quickly disappear. If someone whas walking there they (or it) would have been affected but after 3 - 4 seconds all the effects are gone.

So now I threw the same potion, but this time the new lingering type:

As you can see the particles remain on the ground for quite some time (I haven't timed this). Anyone who steps through this "particle field" will be affected by the status effect for a period of approx. 2 minutes. I think that's the default value for all lingering potions: a 2 minute effect, but exceptions are a thing. For example: some negative potions will last shorter.

So yeah, definitely something which you would expect from a combat update; now you can "poison" or contaminate an area and when someone walks in or over it: wham!

Now, how to create these? This is actually another cool thing: one of the first new recipes which found its way into the game. Now, I can understand that some players would rather not find out about this just yet, so lets use the spoilers for what they were made for:

First you'll need is a splash potion. You will basically add a new ingredient which will "glue" the potion somewhat together. And that something is none other than the Enderdragon's breath!

When fighting the Enderdragon she will sometimes sit down on the end portal "altar" and spit at you. the result is a field of deadlyness:

Dragon breath, or dragon spit? I'm tempted by both names

Just so we're clear: this isn't a pink field of happyness, don't let the purtty color and the new discovery that the Enderdragon is a she trick you into cute and fluffy thoughts:

So what to do? Simple: bring empty bottles with you. And if you right click on this field of poison goo then you'll capture the dragons breath. And that can be used in a brewing stand to apply to the splash potion of your chosing:

One potion to rule them all, and into the effectness bind them... In the world of End where Dragons lie...

(Edit): As of this snapshot you cannot place splash potions into a brewing stand, and I'm not sure yet if this is a bug or not. So it's likely to assume (for now) that you'll need to be careful and decide up front if you want to make a splash or lingering potion. The moment you take out your splash potion you won't be able to change it.

Respawn the dragon!

This is not something new to this particular snapshot version, but simply a feature which I haven't discussed yet. If you place a creeper head made of out clay blocks in the end then the dragon will respawn, and is ready for another fight. The funny thing is that it'll even spawn a second End portal (I'm not sure yet if this is by design or simply a bug):

Bug or not, it does look kind of cool

How to respawn? Well, this is probably going to change in the future, but right now all you need to do is create this pattern using clay blocks:

Right now this even works in the Overworld (somewhat). If I were to place clay blocks on top of this they'd immediately disappear after placing the last block (but it won't cause the dragon to spawn here or in the End).

Nether portal behavior

Another effect which I haven't mentioned yet: the effect of the Nether portal has changed. In the snapshot you can't walk through a nether portal any longer; the moment you touch the particle effect you'll be instantly teleported to the Nether.

This is a change which doesn't really bother me, but it's a change I also don't really care for. In fact; I prefer the previous behavior a lot better. It added to the tense moment of teleporting (IMO).

Path block

In a shocking interview with Mojang they told us that it took them 5 minutes to code this

Right click on a grass block with a shovel and you'll turn it into a path block

Another change to which I'm a little indifferent yet still like. Now people can really evolve their builds over time. Start with a 'dirt path', then work your way up to a gravel path and in no time you'll be walking on a path of solid gold blocks

A funny thing is that this block isn't available in the Creative inventory, but if you middle click with your mouse on it you will pick it up for further use:

Texture of the End teleporter changed

I think this is a really cool change:

It's hard to describe but it looks really weird. The official changelog is very clear about this change:

• Looking into End Gateways may cause slight headaches.

Which, all jesting aside, may hold a little truth to it. It looks weird and different, but at the same time suiting. It's basically staring into a brighter section of the end which looks static at first but as you move around it it almost seems as if the texture also moves & changes. While it doesn't.

Oh, and a small tidbit. When I killed the Enderdragon again I suddenly caught the "lighting" of this new teleporter by accident. Must have been a glitch, but it clearly shows you how you'll be able to spot these teleporters for the first time:

So no beacon is placed into effect here, which actually reminds me:

No more beacons in End ships

In a previous post above I showed you what an End ship looks like and also that it had a beacon. That has changed; the Beacon is now replaced with a "Bacon block". I have no idea what that is, I did pick up talk about the beacon being replaced by a melon or pumpkin but so far I haven't tried to go to a new world to try and re-generate these.

I have it too.

I heard that there are iron gates around the wonder crystals. I don't know if someone mentioned it here. Can you break the iron gates to get to the crystal?

Some people seem to be worried about 1.9 'breaking' PvP with the introduction of tipped arrows and an offhand shield. I just think that'll make it better - however, one thing that really worries me, mainly for EMC's PvP Arenas, is the lingering potions. Want to troll? Drop a lingering poison potion on each of the 5 spawns. That's going to get annoying really fast.

I originally hoped that EMC would disable those in PvP, but gave up on that because they're vanilla items.

If they did ban those, which I hope they do, than we have a valid point, if ya know what I mean...

Shields are here!

I have no idea how to craft them yet (can't figure it out so far) but I do know that we have 16 different shields (one for each color) and in general they look kinda nice (as you can see). The snapshot clearly tells us that the fight mechanics are still heavily unbalanced but even so; I decided to go a few rounds with some skeletons, creepers and zombies:

It held out pretty good. It seems as if all the arrows fired by the skeletons got blocked by my shield. I didn't really sustain much damage, so that's good.

Note the gunpowder: the skeletons even shot the creepers

Shields also seem to work a little in a melee attack, but aren't that efficient (yet?). When a zombie attacks you're more or less "pushed back" without sustaining too much damage. I say too much because eventually you do have some effects to cope with:

So yeah; shields are here.

Makes me wonder if it wouldn't be possible to introduce random spawn points. That way you wouldn't know where someone would enter the arena.

i dont think there is enough time to put the potions in all the pvp spawns, and even if there is, all they have to do is walk out of the relatively small area to stop being affected i already bring in milk buckets when i pvp this wont change anything for me. if anything it makes combat more exciting because if its a team battle you could hide buff spots from the other team at strategic points.
scenario: im losing a fight really bad but i put down lingering regen2 str2 and swift2 in an area hard to reach, i pearl to that area and pearl away without having whoever is following me realize. now im back at full health and ready to play and they probably didnt even see what happened.

the only thing that will change is theres gonna be lingering spots all over the place in staff events which will be super fun

Now, mob heads are in Vanilla MC, and can be obtained in survival. There is a slim chance that the three mobs may drop them, however. Player heads can also be obtained in Vanilla MC, just not in survival. For example, I can go to a singleplayer world right now, and with no modifications or external programs, receive Aikar's head. Of course, it uses a command, so it is not a survival feature.

Just to re-iterate something for those who may not know: Anything obtained using MCEdit, NBT Editor, or anything like the said programs are not Vanilla.

Thanks for reading.

-G

Mobs have a 100% chance to drop their head. You need to blow them up using a creeper struck by lightning.
And why would that not be Vanilla? By using MCEdit, you don't modify any game files, but just the save files, which can be edited in Minecraft as well.

Ok, you guys; I am extremely excited because I did it! I finally discovered something; it feels like playing Minecraft for the first time and wondering how the heck you can create stuff

Now, I realize like no other how annoying a spoiler can be; so no worries. But I will say this: I found out how you can craft shields. And that's not all: if you think banners are cool, wait until you see this!

(so much for spoilers)

This actually has kept me wondering for quite a while, I honestly couldn't figure it out. Also because when you look at the icon (see screenshots above) it looks an awful lot like like a banner. So that's what I tried: but instead of using wood I used an iron ingot because it seems to me as if your grip is made out of iron. Look:

I had sent this picture to a (non-EMC) friend of mine (who doesn't like experimenting with snapshots) to discuss this and he suddenly noticed that the inside looked a lot like wood to him. The edges look like iron to me. So I started experimenting with that. Well, I'll spare you guys all the failures, lookie here:

What I learned so far: the order doesn't really matter, I can switch the wool and the iron ingot around and you'll still get a shield. Using different types of planks make no difference. So you can make shields as long as you have planks. Obviously using different wool colour will get you different shield colours. Makes sense. And the odd part here: as you can see you'll create a damaged shield. I assume that this is a bug.

Bug or not: it made me wonder if you could somehow repair this shield. The obvious material to use, in my opinion, is wood (considering that iron seems only to be used for the handle). And what do you know?

For some reason I can only get a black shield out of this, but I assume that this is caused by a bug. I doubt that the shield should be damaged right after you crafted it. Still, this does seem to suggest that we'll be able to repair shields using wood.

And it makes me wonder if we'll ever be able to make iron or golden shields. I tried, but for now this is a no go. So wood it is. Pretty exciting huh?

But wait, it gets even better!

I'm using 2 spoilers, simply because I could imagine that some people might want to know about crafting shields but don't care for the extras just yet, whereas others might not care for the crafting but would like to know about the small tidbits.

So I stumbled upon this one by pure accident, it's what I love about playing with snapshots: playing & experimenting and then sometimes discovering new cool stuff.

Because a shield looks an awful lot like a banner (as I already mentioned) I started wondering.... And for sure, check this out:

So you can apply the print of a banner onto a shield. Right now you'll keep both the shield and the banner. It seems legit to me, but it could of course also be a bug. I could imagine that you more or less "enhance" the shield with the banner and thus lose the banner in the process. But that's peanuts considering that you can easily copy banners if you'd like. ....which suddenly reminds me.

SO yeah, check this out:

Move over Samurai Jack, Samurai Shell will be taking over!

Seems I only forgot my katana, but we'll handle that another time

I know there are several players who like to team up in PvP by using the same kind of skin so that players can recognize each other. I also know that our Senior Staff likes to "troll" us a little (naah, just kidding guys, but I am sure that you're making some people a little jealous!) by using banners as some kind of hat.

Well, I'm no PvP'er but I cannot help wonder if this wouldn't also do the trick. Now you can truly team up as the person you are (keeping your skin) while also showing your awesome banner creations at the same time!

Cosmetic? For sure. But I still think it can seriously enhance some PvP roleplay events.

Pardon my fanatasy here (just worked on my fantasy story, more to some soon): but... On one hand we got our beloved staff (die, die, die! (just kidding!, referring to the PvP event obviously!)) who all have an EMC logo'd shield (no idea if that's even possible) whereas on the other is the PvP legion of players.... I can only imagine how epic that must look like.

Makes me almost want to pick up a fishing rod and go fishing, just to see the action for myself

So there you have my small update. Dunno about you guys but I think this could be pretty exciting. Heck: I am pretty excited about these discoveries.

More to follow soon enough!

PS: oh: my earlier comment about the splash potion which couldn't be inserted into a brewing stand turned out to be a bug. So if you have a splash potion and managed to capture the dragons breath (I still think "Dragon spit" covers it better) then you can convert it into a lingering potion.

Yes, I realized that Charged Creepers did something, but I wasn't really sure until you reminded me.

MCEdit is an external program, and is not a Vanilla feature -- therefore, anything made or obtained using it is not considered Vanilla. MCEdit is a modification to the game. Although a good deal of things you can do with it literally only edit the features already in MC, but it is, again, an external program. Now, lets not get off topic.

HOLY COW lingering potions is what I wanted so badly! Buffing/debuffing certain areas! Wooooo

There's just one thing which i'm wondering about; all those particles are probably going to cause some lag...

It wouldn't work very well, as they only stay lingering for about 10 seconds.