Minecraft 1.9.3 Pre-Release Guide
Lately there's been a flurry of pre-releases available for Minecraft, each one more wonderful than the next. What's been really great about them is the amount of new content and gameplay that has been introduced with each pre-release. In this, the third 1.9.3 pre-release, we have a complete enchanting and potion brewing system, complete with potions you can make yourself, baby animals and a new dimension.
Baby animals! The minecraft breeding program has finally resulted in actual babies. Baby Minecraft animals are adorable because of their tiny bodies and proportionally large head. Animals have been persistent (ie. won't despawn) since the second pre-release, which opens up very real possibilities for animal farms. It should be noted however, that there is now a cool down on animals that have recently been in 'love mode' so that you can't just breed them into the ground like crazy.
Minecraft Magic, Enchantments and Potions
Enchanting Tables
The enchanting table looks absolutely amazing, for it has diamond
corners and a magical book that floats above it, rotating slowly and
occasionally opening up and fanning its pages. The enchanting table can be used to create enchanted weapons and armor. More on that in a bit.
There are also other pieces of magical equipment like cauldrons and potion brewing stands for making potions. There doesn't appear to be any GUI for the cauldron as yet, but I've included screenshots of the GUI for the enchanting table and potion brewing stand.
Enchanting and potions are undeniably the most significant new elements introduced in the Minecraft 1.9.3 pre-release. A guide to making minecraft potions can be found here.
When bookshelves are placed near the enchanting table, the table appears to act as a sort of black hole, pulling symbols and glyphs from the books and absorbing them into itself. It should also be noted that bookshelves will now drop three books when broken, instead of crumbling away into nothingness.
A New Sky Dimension
Speculation was rife that there might be a new dimension included in this pre-release. This is because three worlds are loaded upon start up. However, at the time of writing, the method of accessing this potential new dimension (legitimately) had not yet been discovered. (And very possibly is not yet activated.) Some server hacks have managed to access it however and I can confirm that there is now a new sky dimension in Minecraft, one that looks very much like the Aether mod, but most likely operates quite differently.
If you've just been following along with these guides and don't intend to update until the full official update comes out, there's going to be a whole lot of new content for you to play with, so be excited, be very excited. As usual, the pre-release versions do contain some bugs, but none of them are game breakers. Massive amounts of credit have to go to Mojang for keeping their players so incredibly involved during the development process.
