Java Edition 14w30a

14w30a is the thirty-eighth snapshot for Java Edition 1.8.

Blocks

 * Banners
 * Can be worn as headgear - but only using commands.
 * Over 16&times;4006 possible combinations = 6.5536&times;1016.
 * Crafted like a sign, just with one color of wool instead of planks.
 * Can be stacked to 16.
 * Most patterns are created by arranging dyes in certain ways around a banner on a crafting table.
 * The dyes cannot be shifted or flipped even if there is space, known as a fixed recipe.
 * Additional patterns: creeper, skull & crossbones, brick, and flower - making these without dyes will result in a black pattern, use dyes to get different colors (items: creeper skull, wither skeleton skull, brick block, oxeye daisy).
 * 33 crafting recipes which produce different patterns.
 * Up to 6 layers of patterns possible.
 * Can be placed on walls or on the ground (16 rotations possible).
 * Sway as if blown by wind.
 * Can be cloned by crafting them together with a blank banner.
 * Top-most layer can be removed using cauldrons.

Command format

 * NBT tags
 * New  tag for entities.
 * Setting to 1 disables sound produced by that entity, such as idle and hurt sounds.

General

 * Statistics
 * Detects how many times the player has talked to villagers (opened the trading GUI).
 * Detects how many times the player has traded with villagers.
 * Detects how many times the player has traded with villagers.
 * Detects how many times the player has traded with villagers.

Blocks

 * Mob Heads
 * Made creeper, skeleton and zombie heads available in survival.
 * Creepers, skeletons, wither skeletons, and zombies drop their heads when killed by charged creepers. Wither skeletons continue to have heads as rare drops.
 * Skulls worn on heads are now bigger so the 2nd skin layer no longer peeks through.
 * Player and mob heads in inventories and held by mobs/players now display the actual head.

Command format

 * command can now summon lightning using.
 * command can now summon lightning using.

Gameplay

 * Lighting
 * Completely fixed black spots.
 * Players will need to re-load old worlds for them to be fixed.

General

 * F3 debug screen
 * Now displays how many chunk sections are being rendered currently and how many chunk sections are out of view in percent, the OpenGL version, display size, vendor and GPU.
 * "Vanilla" added to the version number. e.g., "Minecraft 14w30b (14w30b/Vanilla)".
 * Presumably this will say something different if modded. Very few mods (or even APIs) currently exist for versions this recent.
 * F3+H tooltips now show how many NBT tags an item has.
 * Block names no longer contain blockstate data in brackets next to their name (in the view of a block's name and data along the right side of the screen).
 * Data is still shown in separate rows beneath the name.
 * Animations
 * Third person sword blocking position slightly tweaked
 * Block hitting animation redone
 * Punching while blocking, shooting an arrow, drinking a potion, and eating removed
 * Rod scaling tweaked
 * Removed armor turning red


 * Options
 * Video Settings
 * Render distance slider now goes up to 32 when using 64-bit Java.
 * Requires 2 GB of allocated RAM.
 * Removed Advanced OpenGL.
 * Performance improvements
 * Rewrote chunk sorting.
 * Ported over the visibility culling code from MCPE to avoid rendering invisible stuff.
 * Threaded chunk rebuilds.

Trivia

 * 14w30a was previously removed from the launcher for some time, but was added back in September 2018.