Java Edition 15w43a

15w43a is the thirty-fourth snapshot released for 1.9. Most notably, Chinese, Japanese and Korean (and likely other IME languages) can now be input into chat thanks to bug  being fixed. Igloos were also added in this version.

World generation

 * Igloo
 * Spawn randomly in Ice Plains and Cold Taiga (but not the Hills variant).
 * Spawning parameters are shared with desert temples, jungle temples, and witch huts: the fact of a structure spawn is decided, then the biome determines which structure (if any) is spawned.
 * Created by Searge (as found in the NBT data).
 * An igloo contains: 9 white carpets, 3 light gray carpets, 2 blocks of ice, a redstone torch, a furnace, bed and a crafting table.
 * Some igloos have a stone brick basement, with a cauldron, 2 red carpets, a brewing stand, 3 spruce stairs, and loot chest, along with a villager priest and zombie villager priest in iron bars. A trapdoor with ladders leads down, into the mossy brick basement, cracked and stone brick also available, with 2 torches.
 * In the loot chest, there will sometimes be a golden apple in the central spot, hinting that the player needs to cure the zombie.
 * Always spawns with a splash potion of weakness hinting the player to use these on the zombie villager to turn it into the same type of villager next to it.
 * The zombie has the PersistenceRequired tag which makes it not despawn.
 * Silverfish spawn in some stone brick blocks.

Command format

 * NBT tags
 * Chests/Minecart chests
 * (string): Loot table to be used to fill the chest when it is next opened or destroyed. When the chest is part of a double chest, only the half corresponding to the tagged single-chest will be affected.
 * e.g. /
 * (long): Seed for generating the loot table. Used in vanilla survival to replicate chest content in new worlds with same seeds. 0 or omitted will use a random seed.
 * All mobs
 * (string): Determines which loot table will be used when the mob is killed.
 * e.g..
 * (long): The deterministic seed for grabbing data from the loot table. Used in vanilla survival to replicate chest content in new worlds with same seeds. Must not be 0.
 * e.g..
 * e.g..

General

 * Loot tables
 * All loot from mobs, chests etc. is now based on loot tables, excluding block drops.
 * Can be changed by mapmakers by adding a json file within the "WORLD/data/loot_tables" folder, however, it's broken in 43a.

Blocks

 * Heavy weighted pressure plate, Light weighted pressure plate, Wooden pressure plate
 * Added new sounds.


 * Lily pads
 * Can be placed on ice and frosted ice, but will not stay if updated.


 * Sugar cane
 * No longer breaks if its adjacent water is turned to frosted ice.


 * Wooden button
 * Added new sounds.

Mobs

 * General
 * Mobs wearing armor or carrying weapons no longer drop the equipment, i.e.  and   are ignored.
 * See.


 * Cave spiders & spiders
 * Drop eyes more often (now 50% chance, previously a 33% chance normally and 66%/77%/82.5% with Looting) and the amount is now increased by Looting.


 * Chickens
 * Now drop more than one meat item when killed with Looting.
 * See.


 * Elder guardians
 * No longer rarely drop fish as if from fishing.
 * See.
 * Now drop dry sponges on any kill, rather than wet sponges on a player kill.
 * Drop chances for raw fish and prismarine crystals changed. Now it's a 40% chance for fish, 40% for crystals, and 20% of nothing, with the amount increased by Looting. Formerly it was 33% raw fish and 33% of crystals only if the raw fish drop failed, with Looting increasing the chances but not the amount.


 * Enderman
 * No longer drop the held block.
 * See.


 * Ghasts
 * Now drop 0–3 gunpowder and 0–2 ghast tears (up from 0–2 gunpowder and 0–1 tears), incremented as usual with Looting.
 * See in.


 * Guardians
 * No longer rarely drop fish as if from fishing.
 * Drop chances for raw fish and prismarine crystals changed. Now it's a 40% chance for fish, 40% for crystals, and 20% of nothing, with the amount increased by Looting. Formerly it was 33% raw fish and 33% of crystals only if the raw fish drop failed, with Looting increasing the chances but not the amount.
 * See.


 * Horses
 * No longer drop leather, bones, or rotten flesh. Saddles, horse armor, chests, and chest contents are still dropped when applicable.
 * See


 * Pigs
 * No longer drop worn saddles.
 * See.


 * Rabbits
 * Now drop more than one meat item when killed with Looting.
 * See.
 * Rabbits no longer rarely drop feet.
 * See.


 * Sheep
 * Sheared sheep now drop wool when killed.
 * See.


 * Skeletons
 * Now drop 0–3 arrows and 0–3 bones (up from 0–2 of each), incremented as usual with Looting.


 * Wither skeletons
 * Now drop 0–3 coal and 0–3 bones (up from 0–1 coal with "0" having double chance and 0–2 bones), incremented as usual with Looting.


 * Zombie pigman
 * Now drop 0–2 rotten flesh and 0–2 gold nuggets (up from 0–1 of each), incremented as usual with Looting.

''Note: many changes above were reverted or modified in 15w43b and 15w43c, with the exception of the change to the drop chances from guardians, the change of elder guardians dropping dry rather than wet sponges, the addition of Looting affecting chicken and rabbit meat drops, and the change to how Looting affects spider eye drops. Also, as of 15w34c horses again drop their items, but always 1 rather than 0–2.''

World generation

 * Stronghold
 * Increased number of strongholds to 128 per world, rather than 3.

Command format

 * Now displays in chat the gamemode the player switched to.
 * Now displays in chat the gamemode the player switched to.

Gameplay

 * Brewing
 * Blaze powder fuel points reduced from 30 to 20.


 * Enchantments
 * Frost Walker no longer works on flowing water.


 * Trading
 * Librarians charge double for books with "treasure" enchantments.

General

 * Debug screen
 * Now shows more information.
 * gives help.
 * Shows all + key combinations.
 * now increases render distance by 1 (Min and Max are 2-32).
 * now decreases render distance by 1 (Min and Max are 2-32).
 * Shows if the pie chart and FPS chart are shown on screen.
 * Shows text in chat when you reload chunks, sounds, etc.
 * Does not open the F3 screen when you use a specific key combination like, , etc.
 * Removed, which previously reloaded sounds.
 * now reloads all resource pack content, including sounds.


 * Sounds
 * Added 150+ new sound events.

Video
Video made by slicedlime:

Trivia

 * 15w43a was previously removed from the launcher for some time, but was added back in September 2018.