Java Edition Beta 1.8 Pre-release

Beta 1.8 Pre-release
Edition	Java Edition
Release date	September 9, 2011
Type	Pre-release
Pre-release for	Beta 1.8
Downloads	Original:; Client (.json) ; Original server unavailable; Reupload:; Client (.json) ; Server
Protocol version	15
Minimum Java version	Java SE 5

The pre-reupload server version of this release is lost.

While this release is known to exist, it has not been archived in the launcher or elsewhere, and is therefore considered lost.
If you believe you have a copy of this version, please post it on the talk page of this page.

It has been suggested that this page be split.

^[discuss^]

If this split affects many pages, or may potentially be controversial, do not split until a consensus has been reached.
Reason: Split original and reupload into separate pages

Other editions with a version "1.8-pre1":

Java Edition

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

Beta 1.8 Pre-release block and item additions

Blocks

Glass Pane

Crafted using 6 glass.
Drops itself when destroyed.

Iron Bars

Crafted using 6 iron ingots.
Appear only in strongholds and blacksmith houses.

Fence Gate

Connect to fences.
Open when used.

Stone Bricks

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.

Cracked Stone Bricks

Mossy Stone Bricks

Vines

Can grow to nearby blocks.
Can not be climbed in this version.

Infested Blocks

Spawn silverfish when broken.
Doesn't drop when broken.

Bricks Slab

Stone Bricks Slab

Brick Stairs

Drop brick blocks.

Stone Brick Stairs

Drop stone bricks.

Mushroom Blocks

Drop their corresponding mushroom.
Do not generate naturally as of yet.
- Generate when the player uses bone meal on a mushroom.

Melons

Drops melon slices when mined.

Melon Stems

Pumpkin Stems

Commands

/gamemode.

Changes the gamemode.

Items

Cooked Chicken

Restores 6 hunger.

Raw Chicken

Dropped by chickens.
Can give the player Hunger effect.

Steak

Restores 8 hunger.
Reuses old porkchop texture.

Raw Beef

Dropped by cows.
Restores 3 hunger.

Rotten Flesh

Dropped by zombies and zombie pigmen.
Can give the player the hunger effect. Restores 4 hunger.

Ender Pearl

Dropped by endermen.
Currently has no use.
Model is not aligned.

Melon Slice

Drops from melon blocks.
Restores 2 hunger.

Melon Seeds

Crafted from melon slices.
Can be planted in farmland to grow melons.

Pumpkin Seeds

Cannot be obtained.

Can be planted in farmland to grow pumpkins.

Mobs

Cave Spider

New variant of the spider.
Inflicts Poison on the player.
Spawns from spawners in mineshafts.

Enderman

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.

Silverfish

Appears when the player breaks infested blocks.
Now has AI. (Unused in Beta 1.7 - Beta 1.7.3)

World generation

Biomes

Extreme hills
Ocean
- Oceans existed in previous versions, however, now they exist as an actual biome, spanning thousands of blocks.
River

Generated structures

Mineshaft
- The support beams are wooden planks instead of oak fences.

Ravine

Stronghold

Village
- Unpopulated as of now.

Gameplay

Hunger

Sprinting

Activated by double-tapping W.

Experience

Currently has no use.
Different sound, more like a pop.
No sound for leveling up (it doesn't exist yet).

Blocking

Activated by using a sword.
Negates 50% of the incoming damage.

Critical hits

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.

Void fog

Increases darkness at extreme depths.
Decreases field of vision.

Effects

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.
Added unobtainable status effects, but are functional:
- Speed, Slowness, Haste, Mining Fatigue, Instant Health, Instant Damage, Water Breathing and Nausea.
Added unobtainable and nonfunctional status effects:
- Strength, Weakness, Jump Boost, Resistance, Fire Resistance, Invisibility, Blindness and Night Vision.

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.

Main menu

Revamped the main menu by adding an animated menu panorama. The menu panorama uses seed 2151901553968352745 in terrain generated using the generator last seen in Beta 1.7.3 at coordinates (61, 75, -68).^[1]

Options

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).

Server list

The ability to save and view multiple servers has now been added.

Splash

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

Ferns

Triangular ferns no longer generate naturally.

Chests

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.

Lava

Now when lava is touched by rain, it emits smoke particles.

Obsidian

Can now be mined by an iron pickaxe or moved by an enderman.

Items

Shears

Can now be used to harvest shrubs.

Cooked Porkchop

Changed the texture from to .
Its old texture is now used by steak.

Golden Apples

Now restore 10 (), instead of 20HP × 10 health points, and also give Regeneration for 30 seconds.

Item (entity)

Fixed stairs, cactus, farmland, pressure plate, fence, cake, snow layer, button, and trapdoor items being too big.

Mobs

Passive mobs

No longer despawn.

Pigs

Their snouts now extrude from their model, rather than being flat.

Mobs

Removed the mob as an entity, however, their AI is still in the code.

Monsters

Removed the monster as an entity, however, their AI is still in the code.

Skeletons

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
- They have been renamed to just "swamps".
- They are a much more vibrant green color.
- They have a new tree type, which are slightly bigger and have vines hanging from their leaves. They can also generate in shallow water pools.
- They are much more flat.
Taiga
- They no longer have snow nor ice.

Sea level

Now one block lower.

Gameplay

Explosions

Now emit shockwave particles.

Daylight cycle

No longer require chunk updates and is a smooth transition.

Player

Unarmed damage was decreased from 2HP to 1HP.

Void

Entities are now lit in the void.
Color of the void now changes from blue to black while descending.

Spawn

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

Debug screen

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.

Light

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".

Options

Added the brightness option.

Splash

Removed duplicate "Check it out!"

Removals

World generation

Biomes

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

Far Lands

General

Distance effects

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.

World boundary

Has now been moved to 30,000,000, from 32,000,000.

Reupload

Beta 1.8 Pre-release was reuploaded approximately 24 hours after its initial release to fix bugs and remove some debug features. Features and bugs present in the initial version include:

Villages do not generate correctly. Only the wells, gravel paths, and lampposts generate; houses do not generate.
The stronghold does not generate correctly. Only the central staircase generates.
Various models often become corrupted.
Screenshots can sometimes fail to save, printing an error into the chat: Failed to save: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Number of remaining buffer elements is x, must be at least y. Because at most y elements is required, regardless of actual returned element count, where x and y are two numbers, with y being less than x. This bug seems to occur after changing the resolution of the game window, and can be solved by making the window smaller.
The world can sometimes fail to save, resulting in lost progress when quitting.
Various debug keys exist.
- F9 freezes the camera in its current position.
- F6, while also turning back time, enables a strange "bouncy" movement. It locks the player's Y coordinate (meaning they cannot jump or fall). It makes the player accelerate relatively slowly when moving. The speed can be changed using mouse scroll, negative speeds revert the controls. Additionally, blocks lose their collision, however the player is still affected by solid blocks trying to push them out (as observed in normal gameplay), though if the player is moving quickly enough they can push all the way through a block. Strangely enough, negative speeds "suck" the player into blocks on collision.
- N and M change the view's rotation clockwise and counterclockwise, respectively. Holding both keys simultaneously resets the rotation.
- Y and H decrease and increase the field of view, respectively. These keys seem to affect the field of view differently to how the FOV option does - the player's hand (or anything the player is holding) also becomes stretched as the field of view increases or decreases, which does not happen if the player changes the FOV option in the menu. Holding both keys simultaneously resets the field of view.
- I makes the player look up, J looks left, K looks down, and L looks right. These movements are normally done by moving the mouse. This setting cannot be reset by holding any keys simultaneously.
- U and O moves the third-person camera forwards and backwards, respectively. This setting cannot be reset by holding both keys simultaneously.

Screenshot with the error message in multiplayer

Trivia

Beta 1.8 Pre-release is the first pre-release for Minecraft.
- Beta 1.8 Pre-release is also the first publicly released development version of Minecraft.
This version suffered from many glitches before reupload (see images below).
This is currently the oldest server version to support Mojang authentication servers. This means any prior version requires setting online-mode in server.properties to false in order to join them.