Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls! We have had another update to the 1.8 snapshot released yesterday full of lovely changes and bug fixes!
First up we have a change to item frames! Items placed in frames can now be rotated by 45 degrees rather than 90 giving the item 8 possible positions. This leads on nicely to the next change! Each position in an items rotations gives off a different strength redstone signal detectable by a comparitor. Some geniuses have already found good uses for this in the creation of redstone combination locks of varying complexity.
Villager AI has been improved and additional functions added. The farmer villager will now harvest and replant mature crops and the butcher picks up any wheat dropped on the ground nearby. At this point in time it seems these crops vanish into the void, but there have been unconfirmed reports they may create bread. These changes leave many options open for the future! Might we see the shepherd shearing sheep?
Buttons may now be placed on the top and bottom sides of blocks. The automatic creation of snow and iron golems, and withers is now possible. The use of a dispenser to place a pumpkin or wither skull in the correct position use to just drop the item in its place. Now the item is placed as a block, allowing for life to be breathed into these creatures.
Previous snapshot versions added the mossy stone brick and chiseled stone brick crafting recipes. We have now been given a recipe for mossy cobblestone! A vine combined with a cobblestone block in a crafting bench results in a mossy cobblestone block. Mojang seems to have listened to the masses with their previous iron golem and zombie pigmen drop changes. The removal of iron ingot and gold from their loot tables has been reversed.
Small changes to the F3 screen. When toggled, your cursor changes to a three colored line which indicates which direction you are facing. The text of the direction you are facing also changes to bold, and the F: value indicating the compass direction has had a simplified coordinate reference added to it. For example when facing east, the X coordinate line of the F3 screen changes to bold, the F line indicates "East (Towards Positive X)" and the cursor points in the red direction.
Lastly there has been more light shed on a hidden addition to the previous snapshot. The /particle command allows the targetable spawning of a wide range of minecraft particle effects on players, entities and coordinates. The full list of effects and more details on the snapshot can be found at http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/14w04a
-Pantzz