Java Edition Beta 1.8/Development versions
This is a list of Java Edition Beta 1.8 development versions.
Beta 1.8 (PAX Prime)
At PAX Prime 2011, Mojang showcased an early build of Beta 1.8 for public viewing. It was compiled on August 25, 2011[1] and showcased during the event which started the very next day.
Differences from Beta 1.8 Pre-release
Blocks
- Missing a tooltip.
- Missing a tooltip.
- Uses a full block model.
- Missing a tooltip.
- In the inventory it appears as a flat texture:
.
- Receiving damage from cacti replenishes the hunger bar.[2]
Mobs
General
- Every mob drops ten individual experience orbs on death.
- Passive mobs do not run around upon being attacked.
- Old models with flat snouts are used:
.
.
- Drop 0-2
diamond on death.
World generation
- Generates in the world.
- Can generate in any biome, even in
oceans.
- Sand generates as a single layer on top of dirt.
- A placeholder biome takes the place of swamps.
- Shares the same flat height values as swamps.
- Uses the same colors as
plains. - Trees and short grass do not generate.
- A placeholder biome takes the place of taigas.
- Uses the same colors as plains.
- Sparse oak trees generate.
- Short grass does not generate.
- Short grass does not generate.
- Short grass does not generate.
Gameplay
- The player spawns with various tools and items when creating a world in survival mode.
- The player spawns in a village.
- Only lasts five seconds at a time with movement speed and field of view decreasing during this time period.
- On top of the experience bar, if the player has attained least one level, the player's "skill points" are displayed. These are simply three times the amount of levels that the player has.
- The version label in the top left corner of the screen is not included.
- Key binds cannot be bound to mouse buttons.[3]
- Pressing F does not require holding down F3 to adjust fog distance.[4]
General
- The old Mojang logo is used.
- The multiplayer join screen does not have a refresh button.
- Uses old update code.[5]
Beta 1.8 (preview)
A special pre-release version of Beta 1.8 was privately given to Hat Films for the creation of the official Beta 1.8 trailer.[6]
Differences from the Beta 1.8 pre-release
- Uses a "skill points" system.
- For every level gained, the player gets three skill points.
- Shows skill points over the experience bar.
- Also present in Creative mode.
- Does not show version number.
- Don't generate with tall grass.
- Can generate in any biome.
- Still generates in the world.
- Don't generate, if they have even been implemented yet.
Beta 1.8 Pre-release
Beta 1.8 Pre-release is the first pre-release for Java Edition Beta 1.8, that was released on September 9, 2011. This is the first pre-release released in 2011.
Beta 1.8 Pre-release was reuploaded approximately 24 hours after its initial release to fix bugs and remove some debug features. See § Reupload.
Additions
Blocks
- Crafted using 6 glass.
- Drops itself when destroyed.
- Crafted using 6 iron ingots.
- Appear only in strongholds and blacksmith houses.
- Connect to fences.
- Open when used.
- Come in regular, cracked, and mossy varieties.
- Occur naturally in strongholds. The different bricks are all called stone bricks in-game. The regular stone bricks can be crafted into stone brick slabs and stairs.
- Can grow to nearby blocks.
- Can not be climbed in this version.
- Spawn silverfish when broken.
- Doesn't drop when broken.
- Drop brick blocks.
- Drop stone bricks.
- Drop their corresponding mushroom.
- Do not generate naturally as of yet.
- Generate when the player uses bone meal on a mushroom.
- Drops melon slices when mined.
Commands
/gamemode.
- Changes the gamemode.
Items
- Restores 6 hunger.
- Dropped by chickens.
- Can give the player Hunger effect.
- Restores 8 hunger.
- Reuses old porkchop texture.
- Dropped by cows.
- Restores 3 hunger.
- Dropped by zombies and zombie pigmen.
- Can give the player the hunger effect. Restores 4 hunger.
- Dropped by endermen.
- Currently has no use.
- Model is not aligned.
- Drops from melon blocks.
- Restores 2 hunger.
- Crafted from melon slices.
- Can be planted in farmland to grow melons.
- Cannot be obtained.
- Can be planted in farmland to grow pumpkins.
Mobs
- New variant of the spider.
- Inflicts Poison on the player.
- Spawns from spawners in mineshafts.
- Has the ability to teleport.
- Makes zombie sounds.
- Is able to carry every block including bedrock and obsidian.
- Enderman's eyes are green instead of purple.
- The enderman's purple particles were instead smoke particles.
- Does not drop its block upon death.
- Has 10 health.
- Appears when the player breaks infested blocks.
- Now has AI. (Unused in Beta 1.7 - Beta 1.7.3)
World generation
- Extreme hills
- Ocean
- Oceans existed in previous versions, however, now they exist as an actual biome, spanning thousands of blocks.
- River
Mineshaft
- The support beams are wooden planks instead of oak fences.
Village
- Unpopulated as of now.
Gameplay
- Activated by double-tapping W.
- Currently has no use.
- Different sound, more like a pop.
- No sound for leveling up (it doesn't exist yet).
- Activated by using a sword.
- Negates 50% of the incoming damage.
- Do more damage depending how close the player was to the ground while falling.
Gamemodes
- Creative
- Infinite access to almost every item.
- No health, except when falling into the void.
- Food is not edible.
- Flying by double tapping Space.
- Increased reach.
- Increases darkness at extreme depths.
- Decreases field of vision.
- Do not show off particles.
- They do not have inventory sprites.
- Added obtainable status effects:
- Regeneration, which increases health slowly.
- Obtained after eating a golden apple.
- Hunger, which decreases the hunger bar.
- Obtained after eating rotten flesh or raw chicken.
- Poison, which hurts the player.
- Obtained when being hurt by a cave spider.
- Regeneration, which increases health slowly.
- Added unobtainable status effects, but are functional:
- Added unobtainable and nonfunctional status effects:
General
Debug keys
- F6 and F7 move time forwards and backwards, respectively.
- F6 disables gravity for the player, it can be canceled by pressing it again.
- H and Y increase and decrease the player's FOV, respectively
- L and J make the player's camera turn right and left, respectively
- I and K make the player's camera turn up or down, respectively
- M and N rotate the player's camera 180° around the Z-axis, respectively.
- Revamped the main menu by adding an animated menu panorama. The menu panorama uses seed
2151901553968352745in terrain generated using the generator last seen in Beta 1.7.3 at coordinates (61, 75, -68).[7]
- The player can now set their field of view in the options via the FOV slider. It can be set from 70 (default) to 110 (Quake Pro).
- The ability to save and view multiple servers has now been added.
- Added the following splash text:
- Jeb has amazing hair!
- Casual gaming!
- Undefeated!
- Kinda like Lemmings!
- Follow the train, CJ!
- Leveraging synergy!
- This message will never appear on the splash screen, isn't that weird? (Unused)
- DungeonQuest is unfair!
- 110813!
- 90210!
- Check out the far lands!
- Tyrian would love it!
- Also try VVVVVV!
- Also try Super Meat Boy!
- Also try Terraria!
- Also try Mount And Blade!
- Also try Project Zomboid!
- Also try World of Goo!
- Also try Limbo!
- Also try Pixeljunk Shooter!
- Also try Braid!
- That's super!
- Bread is pain!
- Read more books!
- Khaaaaaaaaan!
- Less addictive than TV Tropes!
- More addictive than lemonade!
- Bigger than a bread box!
- Millions of peaches!
- Fnord!
- This is my true form!
- Totally forgot about Dre!
- Don't bother with the clones!
- Pumpkinhead!
- Hobo humping slobo babe!
Changes
Blocks
- Triangular ferns no longer generate naturally.
Added an opening and closing animation with a new chest model.- The chest's texture is no longer in the terrain.png file. Instead, it is in the folder "item" under "chest.png" and "chestlarge.png", with the former being a chest on its own and the latter being the large chest.
- Are now tile entities, which means they no longer show the breaking animation and are also now slightly smaller than they were before.
- Now change the direction they face based on the viewpoint of the player.
- Can now be found in mineshafts and strongholds.
- Use door sounds when opening and closing.
- Can now be mined by an iron pickaxe or moved by an enderman.
Items
- Can now be used to harvest shrubs.
- Changed the texture from
to 
. - Its old texture is now used by steak.
- Now restore 10 (
), instead of 20HP
× 10 health points, and also give Regeneration for 30 seconds.
- Fixed stairs, cactus, farmland, pressure plate, fence, cake, snow layer, button, and trapdoor items being too big.
Mobs
- No longer despawn.
- Their snouts now extrude from their model, rather than being flat.
- Removed the mob as an entity, however, their AI is still in the code.
- Removed the monster as an entity, however, their AI is still in the code.
- The bows of skeletons are now larger and held realistically (full-sized bows, two-handed, but don't yet show the arrow pulling back).
- Skeletons now fire arrows slower, but further.
- Skeletons no longer bounce around the player, making them much easier to hit.
World generation
Biomes
- Are now much bigger and more flat.
- Hills and mountains tend not to generate as much, except in the new extreme hills biome.
- They are no longer aligned based on temperature and humidity, instead their distribution is random.
- Swamplands
- Taiga
Sea level
- Now one block lower.
Gameplay
- Now emit shockwave particles.
- No longer require chunk updates and is a smooth transition.
- Unarmed damage was decreased from 2HP to 1HP
.
- Entities are now lit in the void.
- Color of the void now changes from blue to black while descending.
- The player's spawn point is now bound to a specific biome rather than to any sand block. The player can spawn in forest, swamp and taiga biomes.
General
- The ability to see the level's seed has now been added to the debug screen.
- Entity numbers being shown above a mob's head have now been removed from the debug screen.
- Implemented a new lighting engine. The lighting on a block is given a tint based on the most prominent source of light.
- Artificial light now gives a very subtle "flicker".
- Added the brightness option.
- Removed duplicate "Check it out!"
Removals
World generation
Seasonal forest
Rainforest
Shrubland
Savanna (old)
Tundra
Ice desert
- These did not generate in previous versions, so their removal was not noticeable.
Structures
- Beach (old)
- Gravel beach
- All removed biomes convert to a new biome (if generated).
General
General
- The famous high-distance world rendering offset bug has been fixed (except for moving pistons).
- Redstone repeater top faces are no longer weirdly broken.
- Rails, powered rails and detector rails are no longer stretched.
- Ladders are no longer offset nor stretched.
- Upwards travelling redstone wire no longer appears offset from the block it's on.
- The side faces of flowing water and lava are no longer broken.
- Has now been moved to 30,000,000, from 32,000,000.
Beta 1.8 Pre-release 2 ;)
Beta 1.8 Pre-release 2 ;) [sic] is the second and last pre-release for Java Edition Beta 1.8, released on September 13, 2011.[8]
An earlier instance of this version, from September 12, 2011, has also been found. In the earlier version, dead bushes are missing their tooltip, but apart from that and some other minor code differences, this version is identical. It is unknown if the September 12th version was publicly released.
Changes
Blocks
- Now have a tooltip.
- Now spread infinitely down, but do not spread if there are more than four other vine blocks nearby.
- Cracked and mossy stone bricks now drop themselves instead of regular stone bricks.
- Name changed from Grass to Grass Block.
Items
- Blocking now works in multiplayer.
- Can now be used on pumpkin seeds and melon seeds.
- Huge mushrooms can only be made if a mushroom is planted on grass or dirt.
Mobs
- Now apply Poison correctly instead of doing so regardless of difficulty.
- Now drop experience orbs when killed.
World generation
- Their density is now significantly decreased.
- To counter this change they generate about 2.5 times as often.
- Increased stronghold count to three per map instead of one.
Gameplay
- Some of the missing blocks are now on the creative selection screen.
- The player can no longer eat in Creative.
- Chickens and cows killed by burning now drop their cooked meat.
- Holding shift while grabbing a crafting output now automatically takes the maximum amount of outputs from the ingredients it was given.
General
- "Generated Structures" is now on by default.
Fog
- Adjusted fog strength at low altitudes to be less extreme.
- Fog key mapped to F.
- F6 and F7 working as a result of left-in debug code not being removed.
Notes and references
- ↑ "Files have been copied to a USB stick. We will be installing 1.8 onto a bunch of computers here at PAX tomorrow. :D Now I sleep! <3" – @notch (Markus Persson) on X (formerly Twitter), August 25, 2011
- ↑ "Strangely, running into a cactus refreshes the food bar. I assume @jeb_ added some debug code." – @notch (Markus Persson) on X (formerly Twitter), August 31, 2011
- ↑ "I spent most of today tweaking stuff for 1.8. You can bind any action to a mouse button now, or to a keyboard key. Really helps trackpads." – @notch (Markus Persson) on X (formerly Twitter), September 1, 2011
- ↑ "I am very sorry, but I took away the fog-toggle key. Next up, I'm removing jumping and cubes." – @notch (Markus Persson) on X (formerly Twitter), September 2, 2011
- ↑ "Committing new light update code. It's quite a bit more stable, so far." – @notch (Markus Persson) on X (formerly Twitter), September 5, 2011
- ↑ https://youtube.com/watch?v=0PuGTIlJot0
- ↑ "BIG NEWS! We have found the SEED of Minecraft's title-screen background PANORAMA!" – u/Tomlacko on Reddit, July 18, 2020
- ↑ "Ok, so here's the second "pre-release," only use it if you know what to do with the JAR: http://assets.minecraft.net/1_8-pre2/minecraft.jar" – @jeb_ (Jens Bergensten) on X (formerly Twitter), September 13, 2011
