Java Edition 1.3.1

1.3.1 was a major update to released on August 1, 2012, which added trading, adventure mode, new generated structures (jungle and desert pyramids) and new blocks/items including emeralds, book and quills, written books, tripwire. Initially Mojang were going to add rubies but they replaced those with emeralds. They also added ender chests, and also improved enchanting and split the Creative inventory into separate sections.

A pre-release for 1.3.1 was released on July 30, 2012, though the full release of 1.3.1 is identical to this pre-release.

Blocks

 * Wood
 * Cannot be obtained legitimately.
 * 6 sides textures similar to logs.


 * Emerald ore
 * Drops an emerald.


 * Block of Emerald
 * Crafted by putting 9 emeralds on a crafting table.


 * Ender chest
 * Crafted by surrounding an eye of ender with 8 pieces of obsidian.
 * Stores each player's contents across dimensions and all Ender Chests.
 * Contents are preserved even if all ender chests are destroyed.
 * Explosion-resistant.
 * Emits light and purple particles.
 * Unless mined using a Silk Touch-enchanted pickaxe, they drop 8 obsidian.


 * Tripwire hook
 * String in between needs to be placed manually.
 * Breaking the string triggers a redstone signal, cutting it using shears doesn't.
 * Entities like boats, mobs, arrows or players touching the string trigger a redstone signal.
 * String can be up to 40 blocks long.
 * Crafting recipe: iron ingot on top of a stick on top of a planks.


 * Wooden slabs
 * Added all wood types.
 * Wooden slabs crafted after the update act like wood.
 * Wooden slabs crafted before the update still act like stone.


 * Sandstone stairs
 * Crafted in the same pattern as other stairs using sandstone


 * Wooden stairs
 * Added wooden stairs for all kinds of wood.
 * Adjusted hitbox.

Items

 * Emerald
 * Is used to trade with villagers


 * Book and quill
 * Right-click to write on and edit up to 50 pages or read.
 * Click 'Done' to save the book, 'Sign' to choose a title and finalize the book.
 * Crafting recipe: 1 ink sac, 1 feather and 1 book in any possible shape.


 * Written book
 * Can only be obtained by signing a book and quill.
 * Can be sold to villagers.


 * Golden apple
 * Has two crafting recipes now
 * The new one replaces the gold nuggets with blocks of gold.
 * Second tier gives the following:
 * IV (0:30)
 * (5:00)
 * (5:00)
 * Only second tier glows like enchanted tools.
 * Has attributes the Golden Apple had before.

World generation

 * Bonus chest
 * Optional starting chest on non-hardcore worlds
 * Contents: wooden & stone tools, bread, apples, logs, planks and sticks


 * Desert villages
 * Added desert-specific villages


 * Desert pyramids
 * Built out of various kinds of sandstone and wool.
 * Include hidden chest room and TNT trap, with loot including rotten flesh, bones, iron ingots and gold ingots, diamonds and emeralds.


 * Jungle pyramids
 * Built out of various kinds of cobblestone.
 * Contain multiple tripwire traps triggering dispensers filled with arrows.
 * Loot chests include bones, rotten flesh, gold ingots, iron ingots, diamonds and emeralds.

Gameplay

 * Adventure mode
 * Only playable using commands.
 * Building, destroying blocks, setting things on fire and using buckets is disabled.
 * Players can only interact with mobs and the environment.
 * Players can place and take items from a chest, a furnace or a dispenser.


 * Trading
 * Using emeralds as currency, villagers will, depending on profession, offer different trades to players.
 * There are three kinds of trades: Selling, buying and enchanting.
 * As displayed in the top-most part of the trading GUI, villagers take one or more items or item stacks and give back something.
 * After trading, villagers will sometimes emit purple particles for a few seconds to indicate that their trades changed.
 * Otherwise unobtainable bottles o' enchanting and chainmail armor can be obtained by trading.

Command format

 * Shows the map seed.
 * Shows the map seed.


 * Chooses the gamemode new players start in.
 * Chooses the gamemode new players start in.


 * Enables and disable profiling.
 * Enables and disable profiling.


 * Changes the player's gamemode.
 * Changes the player's gamemode.


 * Toggles rain and snow
 * Toggles rain and snow


 * Changes the world time
 * Changes the world time


 * Gives an item to a player
 * Gives an item to a player


 * Adds experience to a player
 * Adds experience to a player


 * Kills a player
 * Kills a player


 * Provides help for commands.
 * Provides help for commands.

General

 * Demo mode
 * Lasts 5 game days per world.


 * Options
 * Chat Settings
 * Change which parts of the chat are shown and how opaque it is.
 * Toggle chat colors, links being clickable and warning prompts for links.
 * Option to rebind the command key, which opens the chat with/in the text field.
 * Snooper Settings
 * Allows users to toggle anonymous data being sent to Mojang.
 * Shows which data will be sent.
 * Video options
 * Have to be toggled manually in options.txt for now.
 * Vertical Synchronization.
 * Fullscreen mode can now be enabled at startup.
 * Added setting to disable servers offering the player texture packs


 * Large Biomes world type
 * Generated as default worlds, but 16× bigger
 * Beaches look closely to what they looked like in Java Edition Beta 1.7.3 and prior.

Blocks

 * Log
 * Can now be placed in 3 different directions.
 * Placement works like similar to piston placement.


 * Furnaces
 * Can be fueled by wooden tools now.
 * Return an empty bucket when using lava buckets as fuel now.


 * Ice
 * Instead of melting in the Nether, it now disappears.
 * Can be obtained using Silk Touch-enchanted gear now.


 * Glass panes
 * Can be obtained using Silk Touch-enchanted gear now.


 * Nether portal
 * Leaks into the Overworld now: Depending on difficulty, zombie pigmen rarely spawn in them.


 * Slabs & stairs
 * Will now be placed upside-down when placed on the upper half of a block's side.
 * When placed upside down, rails, pressure plates, levers, doors, torches, redstone torches, repeaters, redstone dust and beds can be placed on them - Redstone dust behaves like on glowstone - It transmits power horizontally and upwards, but not downwards. Redstone torches don't power redstone placed on slabs/stairs above them, and pistons underneath or to the side of them will not BUD like with a full block.


 * Leaves
 * Water slowly drips through them when it's raining.


 * Cauldrons
 * Slowly fill up when it's raining.


 * Dispensers
 * Minecarts & boats will now be placed if there's rails/water in place.
 * Instead of dispensing buckets, dispensers will now suck in or place water or lava in front of them.


 * Gravel
 * Changed texture


 * Levers
 * Can be placed on the underside of blocks.


 * Wooden pressure plates
 * Can be triggered by arrows.


 * Pistons
 * Now take 2 redstone ticks (0.2 seconds) to expand.


 * TNT
 * Depending on difficulty, does different amounts of damage now:
 * Peaceful: no damage
 * Easy: ½ less damage
 * Normal: same damage as before
 * Hard: ⅓ more damage.


 * Nether wart
 * Can now be grown in the Overworld and in the End.


 * Signs
 * Stack up to 16 now.
 * Crafting now gives 3 signs instead of 1.


 * Monster spawners
 * Added NBT tags to further customize spawned mobs.
 * Only changeable using map editors or mods.


 * Door
 * Doors being broken by zombies now show their damage.

Items

 * Tools
 * Breaking a block that can be instantly mined by hand while holding a block-breaking tool no longer reduces the tool's durability.


 * String
 * Can now be placed as tripwire


 * Cocoa beans
 * Retextured item.
 * Can be planted & grown on jungle wood now.
 * Can be grown instantly using bone meal.


 * Cookies
 * Give a full hunger point now.


 * Book
 * Changed crafting recipe: 3 pieces of paper and one piece of leather in any shape.


 * Empty buckets
 * Stack up to 16 now.

Mobs

 * All mobs
 * Mobs can now spawn on top of all upside down slabs and stairs


 * Pigs
 * Drop 1-3 porkchops instead of 0-2.


 * Slimes
 * Reduced spawn rate in superflat maps.


 * Silverfish
 * When suffering from poison potions, they will now spawn more silverfish from nearby silverfish blocks more often.


 * Creepers
 * Increased knockback effect.
 * Depending on difficulty, they do less or more damage now:
 * Easy: ~50% less damage
 * Normal: same damage as before
 * Hard: $33 1/3$% more damage.


 * Creepers & spiders
 * Become aggressive towards the last mob or player that hit them now


 * Skeletons, creepers & zombies
 * Become neutral against players again a few seconds after being hit in Creative.


 * Endermen
 * Endermen now stalk the player when aggravated.


 * Villagers
 * Villagers spawned from spawn eggs will get a random profession now.

Non-mob entities

 * Boats
 * Are not broken by lilypads anymore, instead they run straight through the lilypad now, breaking and sometimes dropping it.
 * When they crash they can sometimes drop themselves.
 * Are less glitchy and more responsive now.
 * Increased maximum speed.
 * When exiting, players will be moved from the boat.
 * When broken by a player, they drop a boat now.


 * Minecarts
 * When on rails, they can be accelerated a bit while sitting in them.
 * When exiting, players will be moved from the minecart.

World generation

 * Biomes
 * Increased the scale and depth of some biomes:


 * Extreme hills biomes
 * Now generate with emerald ore.
 * Occurs up to 8 times per chunk in veins of 1.
 * Generates between layers 4 and 31, inclusive.


 * Mountains
 * Made sub-biome type mountains like Desert Hills or Ice Mountains taller


 * Jungle trees
 * Made cocoa beans appear on some small jungle trees

Gameplay

 * Breaking
 * The 1⁄4 second (5 tick) delay between block breaking has been removed for players in survival. The player can now instantly mine a large amount of blocks in survival simply by holding if conditions are met.


 * Creative mode inventory
 * There are categorized tabs for various groups of items and blocks.
 * Added a search tab that will automatically be switched to when the chat key is hit.
 * Added survival inventory tab, which shows the full inventory, a 'Destroy item' slot, armor slots including a preview of the player's character and a 2×2 crafting field.
 * Items can now be deleted from the inventory by shift-clicking them.
 * Added layered snow block, monster egg blocks (silverfish spawning blocks), end portal frame and all potions.
 * Now shows potion effects' timers like in Survival.
 * The player will now spawn with an empty inventory in Creative mode.


 * Experience collection
 * Depending on ore type, experience now drops from ores that drop items.
 * Taking smelted items out of furnaces gives experience now.
 * Destroying mob spawners gives experience now.
 * Adjusted experience level progression:
 * Levels 1–15 cost 17 XP points each
 * Levels 16–30 cost 3 more XP points than the previous (cost = 17 + (level - 15) * 3)
 * Levels 31–38 cost 7 more XP points than the previous (cost = 62 + (level - 30) * 7)


 * Enchanting
 * The maximum enchanting level is now 30 and can be reached with only 15 bookshelves.
 * The 3rd slot shows the most expensive possible enchantment more often.
 * Increased chances for multiple enchantments at once.
 * Adjusted enchantments to go with the new maximum level.


 * Multiplayer
 * Added option to let LAN friends join SP games
 * The player can choose which gamemode players join in and whether they are allowed to use cheats.
 * Made entities less likely to glitch through blocks.
 * Added automatic downloading of standard-sized texture packs when joining servers.
 * Blocks other players are mining now show cracks.
 * Made server list re-orderable: shift+click or shift+arrow keys move selected servers.
 * Server list now scans for LAN servers.
 * Added hardcore difficulty: Players are banned upon death.
 * Connections are now encrypted to prevent eavesdropping.
 * Added SRV Record Lookup support
 * Different subdomains of one domain can handle different servers via different port numbers.
 * Service name should be "minecraft"; i.e. "_minecraft._tcp.example.com".


 * Added & changed many minor things
 * Individual, stackable items near each other on the ground now become one item stack.
 * Added shift clicking support to armor slots, brewing stands & enchantment tables.
 * Made the stars smaller and brighter.
 * Removed the downwards knockback while drowning.
 * The "Mojang" splash screen when opening the game appears for 1 instead of 3 seconds now.
 * The sky color in the End changed.
 * Blocks now show cracks when destroying them while the GUI is hidden.
 * The player can now fall 4 blocks without getting hurt (might be a bug as there exist other, higher distances that don't cause damage either).
 * The cracking particles no longer instantly appear when mining blocks.
 * The inventory sprites for all blocks will now face the top right of the block, instead of the top left.
 * When riding a minecart that is currently on a rail, using directional keys will allow the player to slowly move the minecart in that direction.


 * Pick Block key
 * The player now get the actual block.
 * The player can now pick paintings, boats, minecarts and mobs, which will give them their spawn eggs.
 * Picking huge mushroom blocks now gives mushrooms.
 * The player can no longer pick portal blocks.

Command format

 * Server commands
 * Are now more descriptive.


 * Added parameter
 * Added parameter


 * Can now contain to force a new line.
 * Can now contain to force a new line.


 * Can now be used to teleport to specific coordinates.
 * Can now be used to teleport to specific coordinates.

General

 * Launcher
 * Includes demo mode. Note: Clicking on demo mode without the game installed will not work, and instead freeze at game updating and not download.
 * The "Loading update news" message which appears when the launcher attempts to load the release feed is now styled, rather than the plain html it was prior.


 * Performance
 * Reduced CPU, RAM & bandwidth usage.
 * Accelerated chunk loading.
 * Decreased lag spike frequency.
 * Made the Nether less laggy.
 * Decreased unnecessary world updates.
 * Made the chat work smoothly even when the server is laggy.
 * Decreased packets sent between client and server.


 * Servers
 * Made singleplayer internally use a multiplayer server.
 * Decreased world saving intervals.


 * F3 debug screen
 * Truncated coordinates to 5 fractional digits.
 * For example, if the player is at X: 11,427,276, instead of the game displaying x: 1.1427276483E7, it will now display x: 11427276.
 * The y-coordinate now shows both the feet level and the eye level.
 * Removed frame rendering time history graph (bottom-left).
 * 3 new values:
 * : Walking speed (constant)
 * : Flying speed (constant)
 * : Boolean value, true when the player touches the ground.


 * Language files
 * Added tooltips for all types of monster egg blocks and the end portal frame.
 * Added more descriptive tooltips for different types of tree-related blocks, sandstone and stone bricks.
 * Localized server command responses.
 * Added missing commands-related strings.
 * Added missing double chest GUI caption.


 * Superflat world type
 * Respawning in superflat is no longer random.

Fixes
41 bugs fixed
 * Fixed texture packs in folders not showing their icon and description
 * Fixed Man-in-the-middle attack allowing intruders to log in as the player when they visit their server
 * Fixed the Open texture pack folder button not working on macOS
 * Fixed liquids slowing down flying players.
 * Fixed blocks with the same id but different data/damage values stacking in Creative inventory.
 * Fixed boats & minecarts not being one-hit breakable in Creative.
 * Fixed raw fish, dyes, saddles, potions, milk buckets and tools depleting in Creative.
 * Fixed water destroying non-solid blocks when breaking them from above.
 * Fixed Silk touch giving the player only one slab from double slabs.
 * Fixed redstone updates not propagating through unloaded chunks.
 * Fixed repeaters getting stuck when loading their chunk.
 * Fixed tools taking damage when breaking insta-breakable blocks.
 * Fixed a few misalignments in the item sprite sheet.
 * Fixed the arrow representing players on held maps being offset.
 * Fixed being able to duplicate sand, gravel and powered rail.
 * Fixed placing a piston in front of another powered, but not extended one resulting in a glitched piston with the head's texture on all sides.
 * Fixed TNT dropping as a resource on creative mode.
 * Fixed powering specifically glitched pistons crashing the game.
 * Fixed the End Portal Frame block not showing as a block in the inventory.
 * Fixed weather not working correctly in certain biomes.
 * Fixed Overworld portals above Y=127 not being recognized when leaving the Nether.
 * Fixed various hacked mob spawners crashing the game.
 * Fixed thrown splash potions not preserving their type when reloading the world.

Multiplayer only
 * Fixed arrows scooting up to the top of the block they were shot on.
 * Fixed endermen not opening their jaws.
 * Fixed fully charged arrows not showing their particle effect.
 * Fixed many sounds not playing.
 * Fixed magma cubes' and slimes' jumping animations not showing.
 * Fixed thunderstorms not darkening the sky.
 * Fixed weather not fading in or out.
 * Fixed enchanted armor and tools not glowing to other players.
 * Fixed explosions not pushing players back.
 * Fixed TNT not knocking back players.
 * Fixed pistons not pushing back players.
 * Fixed players on minecarts, boats or pigs and spider jockeys not being displayed in the correct location.
 * Fixed glitchy mob prediction.
 * Fixed fishing lines not showing.
 * Fixed sneaking players' nameplates not staying hidden when loading the chunks they are in.
 * Fixed Unbreaking-enchanted tools sometimes breaking and then re-appearing a few times.
 * Fixed potion effects losing their graphical effects when traveling between dimensions.
 * Fixed blocks disappearing when placing them under the player and jumping.

Trivia

 * 1.3 was a version that held several development-related records, until the development of Java Edition 1.8.
 * The most snapshots for a major release: 19.
 * The longest development period, from first snapshot to final release: 111 days.
 * The longest wait between major releases, with a release 153 days after the release of Java Edition 1.2.1 (Later broken by the wait time between Java Edition 1.8 and Java Edition 1.9).
 * If the player changed their skin after Java Edition 1.8 was released, 1.3.1 would be the oldest version to display that skin change. If the player plays on Java Edition 1.2.5 or older versions they will still see the last skin they used before Java Edition 1.8.
 * 1.3 is the last update to without an official name, and promotional image.