Minecraft 1.9 Game Guide, New Hard Mode, Animal Breeding and More!
Just days ago, Minecraft version 1.9 was pre-released, well now the second version of Minecraft 1.9 has been released, and it features a whole lot of new items and changes to gameplay, including animal breeding, glass bottles, a whole new music suite, and much more!
New in the second 1.9 Minecraft release:
Animal Breeding
You can now convince pigs, sheep, cows and chickens to reproduce, which is fairly handy and opens up the possibility of farms. Find out how to breed animals here.
Hardcore Mode!
Minecraft now has a thoroughly merciless hardcore mode, if you die in this mode the entire game is over. There's no option to play in peaceful, easy or normal, you're locked into 'hard' mode the entire time and when you die, there is no respawn. That's right, no respawn. Once you die in hardcore more you are forced to delete your world as punishment for your failure.
Enhanced Endermen
Endermen are slender dark figures that spawn in darkness. They are not hostile - unless you look directly at them, in which case they become very hostile. Endermen are able to teleport towards a player and attack them, which means no amount of running will save you. In the latest version, they've been tweaked so that they are able to dodge arrows.
When killed, Endermen drop ender pearls. There is some talk of these pearls acting as teleportation devices at a later date, but they only work in survival mode, so you're going to have to work for your teleporting abilities. Or hack your inventory the old fashioned way.
Item Repair (How to Repair Damaged Minecraft Tools)
You can now repair damaged minecraft tools by placing two damaged tools into the crafting grid together. Presumably this means you're going to have to build two tools every time and use one until it gets 20 - 40 % away from being broken before switching to the other. When placed together in the crafting grid, you'll end up with one newly repaired tool.
A Scoring System
Up until now, Minecraft hasn't had a scoring system of any kind. But the gold/ green experience orbs that drop when you kill a mob now count towards your end score. Next time you die, you'll be able to see the fruits of your labor in the form of a digit displayed proudly on the game over screen.
Glass Bottles
A glass bottle can be crafted by putting three blocks of glass into the crafting grid in the same way you'd craft a wood bowl or a metal bucket (a v-shape, basically). This creates three glass bottles. Although they may not have much use at present, they are almost certainly going to be used in the alchemy system which Notch is looking to implement before the final version of Minecraft is released.
Also new:
- 9 new musical records to collect.
Potential alchemical items:
- Blaze powder
- Magma cream
- Spider eye
- Fermented spider eye
