Yet another week has passed and yet another 1.8 snapshot has been released!
Ever walked through a swamp at night and stumbled across a poor slime learning to swim..... like a stone? Mojang have taken it upon themselves to get their slime population into tip top shape and have taught them to swim! The smallest slimes have not had the lessons yet and still swim gracefully along the bottom until they tragically perish. Rest in peace.
A very useful invisible “barrier block” was added to the game in the last snapshot for creative and mapmaking purposes. Only problem was when you placed the block it was quite difficult to see since it happened to be invisible. Now when a barrier block is held in the active inventory slot, the currently placed barrier blocks will be displayed with the inventory texture.
Spectator mode has also been polished since its previous release, ironing out the bugs and adding yet another fantastic feature. There now exists a hotkey option to display player outlines while in spectator mode for the ease of identifying player locations.
If you recall in a previous 1.8 snapshot, adventure mode tools were given a tag so they may only work on certain block types. Mojang have now added the CanPlaceOn tag to items, allowing them to only be placed apon the indicated block type. This allows for the easy use of unique buttons or levers as keys for specific doors rather than working on every door.
Some changes to the entity “Age” and “PickupDelay” commands have been added. For background information’s sake the “Age” tag determines how far along the timeline to de-spawning an entity is, and “PickupDelay” indicates how long the item will remain on the ground before a player is able to pick it up. If an item is now given the PickupDelay of 32767, the item will remain on the ground until it de-spawns, and during that time it will be unable to be picked up by players. If the Age tag is given the value of -32768 the item will remain on the ground and never de-spawn, but players will be able to pick the item up.