Minecraft 13w36a All Features - Puffer Fish, Fishing Rewards, Resource Packs

Posted in minecraft

Mojang teased us with a possible Minecraft 1.7 snapshot last week, only for them to save it all up for 13w36a this week. This little sucker is jam packed with new features and is the first update on the way to Minecraft 1.7. Download 13w36a through the launcher and experience new features including the Puffer Fish, Resource Pack selection screen, Fishing Rewards and much more..

Both Jeb and Dinnerbone have been focusing on Minecraft 1.7 during the last few weeks, so while you've been busy playing the old Alpha's, they've been beefing up the snapshot to be one of the largest snapshots we've ever seen. No official name for Minecraft 1.7 so far, but there's been an early start on both biome refinements and new mobs so this may be the new biome update we've all been waiting for.

Let's take a look at each of the 13w36a features in detail..

If you prefer the short video, you can watch that here (note - it does not contain everything). Otherwise full explanations are further down..

Resource Pack Selection Screen

The new Resource Pack selection screen is a biggie for 13w36a as its going to change the way you use resource packs within the game. As you can see from the screenshot below, all of your available Resource Packs are shown on the left side of the screen whilst your selected Resource Packs are on the right.



To use resource packs you click them on the left and they transfer to the right side. Then it's a simple process of ordering the Resource Packs to suit your preferences. Resource Packs near the top of the list will take precedence over the ones below.

If a Resource Pack contains a texture for the Wither mob, then subsequent Resource Packs that also contain that texture will be ignored. It's a kind of first come first served basis. Going from top to bottom, which ever pack contains an item first will be the one that's used.

The beauty of the selection screen is that you can now have one Resource Pack for sounds and another for Textures. No interference or conflicts!

If you're playing online in SMP then the server resource pack will take first priority over your local packs.

Cloning Books

Just like maps, books can also be cloned now. The crafting recipe for cloning a book is very similar to the one for maps - you'll need 9 (unwritten) books and the book you want to clone goes in the middle:

Fishing rewards

Starting in Minecraft 1.7, fishing is more rewarding and a lot more fun.

Rather than just tossing your line into the water and hoping to catch a fish, you never know what you might catch in Minecraft 1.7! There are good rewards such as lily pads and there are bad ones too such as old boots (leather boots).



Dinnerbone classified the 3 types of items that you can catch as:

• Treasure
• Junk
• Fish

Enchantments can be used to increase your chances of catching treasure rather than junk.

Pufferfish

The mysterious Puffer Fish is a new fish species first added in Minecraft 1.7.

It's a deadly catch and trying to eat it will damage your health. It has long spikes coming from its body, like a porcupine, which are only visible when the fish is puffer up. Interestingly, the puffer fish is the second most poisonous vertebrate on the planet - second only to the golden poison frog from Colombia.



The Puffer Fish is also be an important part in the brewing recipe for the water breathing potion.

New Enchantments for Fishing

• Luck of the Sea I, II, III
• Lure I, II, III

These enchantments can be used to enchant your fishing rod and improve your chances of catching one of the new fish in the game.

Other new fish

There are 3 new fish species included in 13w36a, they are:

• Salmon
• Pufferfish
• Clownfish

Fishing improvements

New water particles help you find fish in water regions. Fish will now chase your lure which makes it easier to catch fish rather than randomly waiting for bite.

New Scoreboard commands for Stats and Achievements

The scoreboard commands are proving really popular with map creators and would-be map designers. Mojang understand this and so starting in Minecraft 1.7, they've increased the scope and depth of commands to include stats and achievements.

For example, the achievement "On a Rail" is now available for scoreboards via the following notation:

achievement.onARail

Other examples of new scoreboard commands for stats and achievements:

/scoreboard objectives add MyObjective1 stat.useItem.289
/scoreboard objectives add MyObjective1 achievement.onARail

The STAT scoreboard command allows map makers (or the player) to track statistics for a wide variety of events in Minecraft. You can track stats down to the actual block, entity and item level.

Here are some of the new stats you can track:

Craft item

stat.craftitem.354

Counts the number of times a particular item has been crafted.

Leave Game

stat.leaveGame

The number of times the player has left the game.

Damage Dealt

stat.damageDealt

The total damage dealt by the player. This includes damage to all mobs and players

Killed by Mob

stat.EntityKilledBy.Zombie

The number of times the player has been killed by a particular entity. Replace Zombie with the name of any mob in the game.

Item Used

stat.useItem.89

Number of times a particular item has been used by the player.

Mobs Killed

stat.killEntity.91

Number of times a particular mob was killed by the player.

Blocks Mined

stat.mineBlock.56

Number of times a particular block has been mined by the player.

Statistics and Achievements per world/server

Stats will persist against individual worlds. Unless you delete that world, the stats will be there again the next time you play.

Biome refinements - Disco/clay biome and More Oceans

Jeb's been taking a good look at the biome refinements for 13w36a. Although usually a quiet tweeter, he posted a few screenshots to wet our appetite for Minecraft 1.7..



The second screenshot is the most interesting, revealing a new biome which Jeb simply labelled as Disco mountains due to its multitude of colours. Any hardened Minecraft fan will know that it's a clay biome.

A lot of work has also gone into the diversity of biomes in the grand scheme of things. Oceans have been refined to be more frequent but less intrusive. By the very nature of water flow, this also spawns more rivers which cut through biomes making for a richer environment.

New volume sliders

The configurable sound levels have been categorized into new groups. You can now fine tune sounds including weather, monsters and friendly animals.



These are all the volume sliders included in 13w36a:

• Master Volume
• Music
• Weather
• Enemy Monsters
• Players
• Jukebox and Note Blocks
• Blocks and Environment
• Friendly Animals

Keyboard changes - Sprint key

The controls menu has been redesigned to allow for even more customization. Practically every key can be customized to your choosing now. There's also a new key for sprint so you can kiss goodbye to double tapping, instead you'll be using the LCONTROL key to sprint.

Old Controls Menu



New Controls Menu

Sunflowers

Jeb introduced the new sunflower plant (yellow with a long green stalk) which helps us tell north from south. Like a compass, but more funky, a grown sunflower will always face East.

Particle animations for falling

Falling from a considerable height will cause particles to disperse from the impact zone. No mechanical changes, but a nice graphic touch.

New blocks

Packed Ice - similar to normal ice except you can't see through it.

Lots of new flowers

• Poppy
• Blue Orchid
• Allium
• Azure Bluet
• Red Tulip
• Pink Tulip
• White Tulip
• Orange Tulip
• Oxeye Daisy
• Sunflower
• Lilac
• Double Tallgrass
• Large Fern
• Peony
• Rose Bush

New Biomes

There are several new biomes included:

• Taiga
• Savanna
• Mega Taiga
• Swampland
• Extreme Hills+
• Roofed Fores
• Stone Beach

Amplified World Generation

This new world generation option creates much larger biomes but it also demands alot from your computer. You'll need a decent processor and RAM to play around with this.

Once selected you'll notice that trees are much taller, mushrooms are bigger...everything is more extravagant!

Other notable changes

• Lily pads are now renewable resources
• Less black areas on map generation
• Maximum size of Resource Packs increased significantly from 10MB to 50MB

Download 13w36a

As you can see this is one hell of a snapshot - so get your launcher running and start downloading now!!