Download Minecraft Snapshot 12w24a

Minecraft snapshot 12w24a is available to download. The new update comes with improved support for LAN players to join your single player game. You'll also see the usual round of bug fixes including explosions pushing you back, ender chest changes and many others.

The Mojang team said goodbye to their old office this week and moved on to new premises. This disruption has impacted the snapshot and hence it's not a big one this time around. It's also another step on the way to the official Minecraft 1.3 release.

As Jeb mentioned earlier, Minecraft 1.3 will not be a surprise release and you'll get plenty of warning about the release date. For the time being, these snapshots will be fixing those irritating bugs on the way to producing a stable version.

So, the biggest addition this week is the LAN friends feature. This makes it easier for players to invite people to join their single player server. To use the new feature you need to use the cheat commands (single player commands) and type /publish.

Another of the more substantial changes is the modifications to the Ender Chest. Starting in this snapshot, if you destroy the Ender Chest, an Eye of Ender will not be dropped. Jeb has also modified the way it behaves. Chest contents will now be per player and independent to the person who created the chest. So, if you created an Ender Chest and I opened it, I would only see my contents and not yours. Similarly, if you opened the chest, you'd see your contents and not mine.

An interesting find from a previous snapshot was Chainmail being re-added to survival mode. Players can acquire chainmail by trading with villagers and exchanging emeralds. Chainmail was previously unavailable in survival mode because it required fire blocks to craft. Using single player commands, players could give themselves fire blocks using the /give command. Although it sounds good, Chainmail is only as strong as iron armour and the only different is the semi-transparent appearance. Still an interesting change to note.