Java Edition 1.7.2

1.7.2, the first release of The Update that Changed the World, was a major update to Minecraft released on October 25, 2013, which added many new biomes, new generated structures, new flowers, stained glass, better networking, new commands and more.

A pre-release for 1.7.2 was released earlier on October 25, 2013, though the full release of 1.7.2 is identical to this pre-release.

Blocks

 * Stained glass
 * Glass can be dyed into all 16 colors.
 * This is done by putting a colored dye in the center of a crafting table and surrounding it with 8 pieces of normal glass, yielding 8 stained glass.
 * Stained glass can be crafted into stained glass panes using the same recipe as normal glass panes.
 * Doing this yields 16 stained glass panes, like normal glass.
 * Water, nether portals and other stained glass blocks remain visible when looked at through a stained glass block.
 * Looking through a solid wall of glass blocks, is equivalent to looking through a single piece (this does not apply to glass panes of any kind).
 * Air blocks make the view blurrier each time.
 * Adjacent glass of different colors will ignore each other's colors, and will only render the terrain behind, with the color of the outermost piece of glass.
 * Other translucent blocks may have different effects.
 * Has ID number 95, which replaces the locked chest's data value.


 * Wood Varieties
 * Acacia wood
 * Silver outside with orange inside.
 * Makes up the acacia tree; found in Savanna biomes.
 * Dark oak wood
 * A darker version of the oak wood.
 * Makes up the dark oak tree; found in Roofed Forest biomes.
 * Acacia wood planks
 * Orange in appearance.
 * Dark oak wood planks
 * Same texture as normal oak planks but darkened; almost black.
 * Acacia and Dark Oak Wood Slabs.
 * Acacia and Dark Oak Wood Stairs.


 * Saplings
 * Acacia and dark oak saplings added.
 * Dark oak saplings require a 2x2 configuration to grow, much like big jungle trees.
 * A 2x2 configuration of spruce saplings on the ground, can create the large spruce trees from mega taiga biomes.
 * Regular spruce trees still grow.


 * Leaves variants
 * Acacia and dark oak leaves.
 * Both visually identical to regular oak leaves.


 * Packed ice
 * When broken, it does not turn into water, like normal ice blocks do.
 * Does not melt.
 * Opaque, rather than translucent like normal ice.


 * Podzol
 * Dirt variation that fails to be transformed to it through any method.
 * Grass and mycelium fail to spread on it.
 * Does not spread itself.
 * Only found naturally in Mega Taiga Biomes.


 * Coarse Dirt


 * Grass or mycelium cannot grow on it.
 * Obtainable only through commands.
 * Does not spread.


 * Red sand
 * Generated in the Mesa biome.
 * Behaves like normal sand.
 * Falls like sand or gravel.
 * Can be smelted into glass and crafted into TNT.


 * Flowers
 * Red, orange, white and pink tulips.
 * Can be crafted to red, orange, light gray and pink dyes, respectively.
 * Blue orchid
 * Can be crafted into light blue dye.
 * Allium
 * Can be crafted into magenta dye.
 * Azure bluet
 * Can be crafted into light gray dye.
 * Oxeye daisy
 * Can be crafted into light gray dye.
 * Poppies
 * Replacement for the rose.
 * Looks very similar to it.
 * Can be crafted into red dye as well.
 * All new flowers can burn.
 * All new flowers are randomly offset horizontally, like tall grass.
 * Two block tall plants
 * Applying bonemeal to them, causes them to dispense their respective flower item.
 * Therefore, all two blocks tall flowers are renewable.
 * Sunflowers
 * Always face East.
 * Can be crafted into 2 yellow dye.
 * Peonies
 * Can be crafted into 2 pink dye.
 * Rose bushes
 * Can be crafted into 2 red dye.
 * Lilacs
 * Can be crafted into 2 magenta dye.
 * Double tall grass
 * Can be made by applying bone meal to grass.
 * Large Ferns
 * Two block tall variant of fern.
 * Can be made by applying bone meal to ferns.
 * All new two block tall plants can burn.
 * All new two block tall plants are randomly offset horizontally, like tall grass.


 * Infested blocks


 * New variants added:
 * Mossy stone brick, cracked stone brick and chiseled stone brick.

Items

 * Fish
 * Pufferfish:
 * Restores.
 * If eaten it will inflict the following:
 * IV (1:00)
 * III (0:15)
 * (0:15)
 * Used to brew a water breathing potion.
 * Cannot be cooked.


 * Salmon:
 * Eating it raw restores and cooked restores.


 * Clownfish:
 * Can be eaten to restore.
 * Cannot be cooked.


 * Potions
 * Made by brewing a pufferfish with an awkward potion.
 * Enables the player to breathe underwater for 3 minutes (8 minutes if extended) without the oxygen bar depleting.
 * The potion and particles are dark blue in appearance.
 * The potion and particles are dark blue in appearance.

Non-mob entities

 * Minecart with command block
 * Can only be obtained using commands.
 * Activate using activator rails.
 * Run their command every 2 redstone ticks when powered (activates once when passing over an activator rail at full speed).
 * Can be success tested by going over a detector rail connected to a redstone comparator.

World generation

 * Trees
 * Acacia Tree
 * Curved trees made of acacia logs.
 * These spawn in savanna biomes.
 * Dark oak trees
 * Very thick and short trees, made of dark oak logs.
 * These spawn in roofed forest biomes.
 * Require a 2x2 configuration of saplings to grow.
 * Each new tree has their own leaves and saplings.


 * Biomes
 * Mesa
 * Composed of multiple colored hardened clay that are layered in a way that resembles sedimentary rock.
 * There are seven colors including normal, orange, red, yellow, white, light gray and brown.
 * Has a floor similar to a desert biome, but made of red sand instead of sand.
 * Dead bushes spawn in this biome.
 * Occasional dying forests spawn on top of the clay mountains.
 * There is no rain in this biome.
 * Savanna
 * Generate with acacia trees.
 * Horses can spawn in this biome.
 * Villages may generate in here.
 * There is no rain in this biome.
 * Very flat with plateaus and the occasional giant mountain.
 * Sunflower Plains
 * Exactly the same as plains, but can spawn sunflowers.
 * Roofed Forest
 * Generates with giant mushrooms.
 * Aside from mushroom island, it is the only biome to do so.
 * Has dark oak trees closely packed together – "dark and dangerous under the canopy, even during the day".
 * Monsters will most likely be able to spawn during the day and the night.
 * Birch Forest
 * A forest made entirely of birch trees.
 * Flower Forest
 * Forest variant with several of the new flowers, including peonies, orange tulips, white tulips, oxeye daisies, rose bush and allium.
 * Very densely packed with the various new flowers, including dandelions, but excluding sunflowers.
 * Taiga
 * Now generates without snow.
 * The old variant with snow is called "cold taiga".
 * Mega Taiga
 * This is a very rare biome.
 * Generates 2x2 spruce trees and their regular variant.
 * Has a dirt block variant known as podzol.
 * Currently obtained only through the silk touch enchantment.
 * Contains dirt blocks that do not allow grass to grow.
 * Mossy cobblestone "boulders" are scattered around in this biome.
 * Dead bushes, mushrooms and ferns spawn in this biome.
 * Extreme Hills+
 * Goes considerably higher than the normal Extreme Hills.
 * Lakes of packed ice are dotted around the biome.
 * Deep Ocean
 * Is about ten blocks deeper than normal oceans; the maximum depth is in the low 30s.


 * Biome Variants/Technical Biomes
 * Over 20 variants for the biomes.
 * M – Biomes with an M variant are much rarer than any other variant.
 * Extreme hills M, Taiga M, Roofed Forest M, JungleEdge M, Birch Forest Hills M, Cold Taiga M, Extreme Hills+ M, Savanna M, Savanna plateau M, Swampland M, Jungle M, Mesa Plateau M and Mesa Plateau F M are more mountainous versions of their normal biome counterpart.
 * Desert M has patches of water unlike normal deserts.
 * Birch Forest M has taller birch trees than usual.
 * Savanna M has grassless dirt (coarse dirt in 1.8 and above) and mountains that can generate above the clouds and up to Y: 220 on rare occasions.
 * Plateau – Biomes with a plateau variant are like the hills technical biome, but flattened at the top.
 * Savanna plateau and mesa plateau are the only examples.
 * These are landforms which are raised by up to about 30 blocks and have flat tops.
 * Mesa Plateau F – A variant of the plateau with trees.
 * Mesa (Bryce) – A rare variant of the mesa biome which works similar to ice spikes, with tall clay spikes generating from the sandy mesa floor.
 * Looks like a proper canyon.
 * Hills – More technical hills biomes have been added to fit with the new biomes.
 * Birch Forest Hills, Cold Taiga Hills, and Mega Taiga Hills can now be generated.
 * Beach – Separate certain biomes from oceans and rivers.
 * Stone Beach is composed mainly of stone and often generates between an Extreme Hills biome and a body of water.
 * Cold Beach is composed of Sand with a layer of snow on top.
 * Usually generates between a cold biome, such as ice plains, and a body of water.


 * World type
 * AMPLIFIED
 * It scales up all world generation rules, so it uses the entire world height.
 * Almost all biomes can generate huge mountains that can reach well above Y: 200.
 * Extreme Hills biomes frequently reach the world height limit at Y: 256.
 * Swampland and ocean biomes are unaffected by this world type.
 * Extremely resource intensive and requires powerful computer to run.
 * Ravines here can reach down to bedrock.
 * Contains numerous various landforms that are very rare or non-existent in default generation.
 * Some examples include floating islands, overhangs, large water and lava falls and huge indents.
 * Taiga biomes reach such altitudes that snow starts generating (about Y=130).
 * It was created to test a fix, to reduce the number of lighting glitches, but it was kept as a feature on request of Notch.

Command format

 * Commands
 * Automatically kick idle players after some time.
 * Multiplayer-only and server-operator-only command.
 * Syntax:.
 * Is written in json to create "buttons" and formatted text (underlined, bold, italics, colored, etc.) in chat.
 * Syntax:.
 * Used to spawn any entity in the game, including Giants, Ender Crystals, Ender Dragons, falling sand and primed TNT.
 * Syntax:.
 * Used to give a player achievements.
 * Syntax:.
 * Used to create, delete or replace a block.
 * Syntax:.
 * Checks for blocks in specific locations.
 * Syntax:.
 * Sets the world spawn point for all players, even those who have never joined the server or are offline.
 * Will not automatically override beds.
 * Syntax:.
 * Checks for blocks in specific locations.
 * Syntax:.
 * Sets the world spawn point for all players, even those who have never joined the server or are offline.
 * Will not automatically override beds.
 * Syntax:.
 * Will not automatically override beds.
 * Syntax:.

General

 * Splashes
 * "Now contains 32 random daily cats!"


 * Particle effects
 * Fishing has particle effects.
 * Bubbles will show up moving towards the bobber just before the player has something on the hook. This has the appearance of a fish swimming towards the hook.
 * Falling has particle effects.
 * Particle circumference size depends on distance fallen.
 * Particle appearance depends on the block landed.


 * Achievements
 * The player can now zoom in and out the display of the screen.
 * "Repopulation"
 * Breed two cows with wheat.
 * Requires the "Cow Tipper" achievement.
 * "Diamonds to you!"
 * Throw Diamonds at another player or to a zombie that has the CanPickUpLoot NBT tag.
 * Requires the "DIAMONDS!" achievement.
 * "Adventuring Time"
 * Discover all Biomes.
 * Requires the "The End?" achievement.
 * Did not fully work until Java Edition 1.8.
 * "The Beginning?"
 * Spawn the wither.
 * Requires the "The End." achievement.
 * "The Beginning."
 * Kill the wither.
 * Requires the "The Beginning?" achievement.
 * "Beaconator"
 * Create a full beacon.
 * Requires the "The Beginning." achievement.


 * Statistics
 * Distance by Horse
 * Animals Bred
 * Junk Fished
 * Treasure Fished

Blocks

 * Wood
 * Wooden logs have different textures for their top and bottom
 * Oak Logs remain the same, as if being the default.


 * Wooden slabs
 * Can only smelt half as many items as wood, when used as fuel.


 * Weighted pressure plates
 * Now output a signal relative to the amount of entities on them, always starting at 1 signal strength if any entities are present.
 * For light weighted pressure plates, every entity adds 1 strength to the signal.
 * For heavy weighted pressure plates, starting at 1, every 10 entities adds 1 strength to the signal (Example: 11 entities increases signal strength to 2).


 * Cauldrons
 * Cauldrons with water in them will put out burning entities, taking away one water level each time.


 * Sugar canes
 * Color/shade is affected by the biome color (similar to leaves, grass and vines).


 * Dead bushes
 * Can be placed on hardened clay, stained clay, red sand and dirt.


 * Roses
 * Removed and replaced by poppies.
 * Look very similar to the old roses.
 * Still exist in the form of rose bushes.


 * Air
 * Is now a block rather than the absence of a block.
 * This allows for specific air blocks to be marked and identified through data values.
 * It lacks an item form.
 * Attempting to  it to a player, will result in that inventory slot having no item.


 * Command blocks
 * Show what command it ran recently in the GUI.
 * Extended character limit past the 10,000 mark.


 * Locked chest
 * Removed completely.


 * Iron bars & glass panes
 * Connect to each other and glass blocks.
 * This includes panes of different colors.
 * They are exactly 2 pixels thick.


 * Ferns, dandelions & dead bushes


 * Are now randomly offset horizontally like tall grass.


 * Ice, nether portal (blocks) & water
 * Are visible through each other.
 * If water is directly adjacent to ice, when looking through the ice, the player cannot see the water, but not vice-versa.
 * This allows for custom fish tanks.
 * If water is not directly adjacent to ice, the player can see the water through ice and viceversa.
 * The player can no longer see the water surface from underwater.

Items

 * Enchanted books
 * Can receive multiple enchants at once.


 * Written books
 * Can be cloned by crafting them with an unused book and quill.
 * Can clone multiple copies of the same written book, by putting more book and quills in the crafting grid.
 * A book can be cloned infinitely many times, regardless if it's the original.
 * Can now be stacked up to 16.


 * Maps
 * Maps in item frames cover the whole block face, so that connected maps join together smoothly.
 * They won't display player markers then.
 * Each different type of block has a different shading on the map.
 * It now show colors for colored wool and stained clay, allowing a wider range of colors visible on maps.


 * Flint and steel
 * Is now a shapeless crafting recipe.
 * Can be used to ignite creepers.


 * Fishing rods
 * Can now be enchanted to bias the resulting loot from fishing.


 * Shears, fishing rods and flint and steel
 * Can be enchanted with "Unbreaking".


 * Technical blocks
 * Removed the item forms of the following blocks:
 * bed (26), piston head and extension (34 & 36), redstone wire (55), wheat crops (59), standing and wall sign (63 & 68), wooden and iron doors (64 & 71), lit redstone ore (74), unlit redstone torch (75), sugar cane (83), cake (92), unpowered and powered repeater (93 & 94), pumpkin and melon stem (104 & 105), nether wart (115), brewing stand (117), cauldron (118), lit redstone lamp (124), tripwire (132), flower pot (140), skull (144), and unpowered and powered comparator (149 & 150).
 * They can no longer be obtained with or, but can still be placed as blocks with ,  or summoning a special falling sand entity.

Mobs

 * Iron golems
 * Drop poppies instead of roses.


 * Creepers
 * Can be detonated using a flint and steel.


 * Zombies
 * Reduced the lag that zombies created by pathfinding.


 * Witches
 * Now drink a potion of water breathing, when they are trapped underwater.
 * Can drop a potion of water breathing upon death, as a rare drop.
 * Have been added to the mix of low light-level hostile mobs, spawning anywhere where the light level is below 7, including at night in every biome and in caverns.
 * They usually spawn in groups
 * They have roughly the same spawn rate as the enderman.


 * Zombies & skeletons
 * Zombies and skeletons can now spawn with and drop armor, bows and swords with the "Unbreaking" enchantment.


 * Baby zombies & baby zombie pigmen
 * Can walk in one block tall spaces
 * Their hitbox remains the size of that of an adult.


 * Spiders, cave spiders and endermen
 * Don't become hostile when attacking them in creative mode.

Non-mob entities

 * Item frames
 * Now drop the item inside them when they are punched.
 * Then drop themselves if they are punched while empty.
 * Will display the name of the item they hold (if it is custom-named) when looked at up close.
 * Maps display on the full face of the block.
 * They won't display player markers then.
 * The side texture then is similar to that of oak planks.


 * Boats
 * No longer inflict fall damage when running aground (old boats need to be replaced for the fix to apply).
 * Slightly improved durability from lily pad impacts.
 * Boats have been reverted to the previous "WASD" controls.
 * The and  keys can only be used while the  key is pressed.

World generation

 * Biomes
 * Jungle
 * Melons can now be found in patches similar to pumpkins.
 * Jungle biomes have been made much rarer.
 * Has a jungle edge which has less foliage, but slowly leads into the main jungle.
 * Jungle trees now generate with branches.
 * Swampland
 * Grass is greener and fluctuates more in color, depending on biome temperature.
 * In shallower parts, the coast is covered in staggered dirt block with lily pads between them.
 * Spawn with Blue Orchid flowers.
 * Plains
 * Generates three of the new flowers – azure bluets, oxeye daisies and sometimes tulips.
 * Double tall grass can also generate here.
 * Extreme Hills
 * Snow at high elevations of over y=95.
 * Contain Stone and large dirt patches.
 * Gravel can replace ground cover.
 * Flat valleys near sea level.
 * Can generate up to y=150, slightly above the clouds (previously y=124).
 * Has much more height variation and has flat parts as well, as opposed to the previous extreme hills which forced endless high peaks to generate.
 * Cold taiga
 * Old taiga biomes have been renamed to "cold taiga".
 * The name "taiga" is now used for a variant without snow.
 * Ocean
 * Oceans are smaller and take up much less of the map.
 * Contain only gravel on the floor instead of sand, dirt and gravel.
 * Gravel Beaches
 * Appear more often.


 * Biome categorization
 * Four main categories based on temperature:
 * Snow-covered, cold, medium and dry/warm.
 * Biomes will attempt to avoid getting placed next to a biome that is too different to itself.


 * Biome elevation
 * Much greater variation of elevation in general.
 * Most biomes can generate to y=100.
 * Hills technical biomes have been made taller.


 * Temperature
 * Each biome has a base temperature that determines whether the biome is snow-covered, whether it rains or snows, or whether it rains at all.
 * Biomes are grouped according to their temperature and attempt to generate next to biomes with similar temperatures.
 * Temperature decreases by 0.05 every 30 blocks increase in altitude.


 * Caverns
 * Are less dense and interconnected.


 * Witch huts
 * Now generate with a witch inside.
 * They formerly generated empty, with witches spawning inside later.


 * Bonus chests


 * Can now contain acacia logs.


 * World boundary
 * All blocks beyond X/Z 30 million (±30,000,000) from origin now act as solid blocks.
 * This includes air blocks.
 * This creates essentially an invisible wall at the boundary.
 * As all blocks function as solid, if the player is moved outside the boundary via external tools, they will be unable to move outside the block space they are within.
 * Despite that, the camera can still move normally.
 * Ghost chunks still generate.

Gameplay

 * Fishing
 * Items other than fish can be obtained by fishing.
 * These are divide into three classes.
 * Fish: raw fish, raw salmon, clownfish and pufferfish.
 * Treasure: enchanted fishing rods, enchanted bow, enchanted books, name tags, tripwire hook, lily pads and saddles.
 * Junk: damaged fishing rods, water bottles, rotten flesh, string, leather, bowls, sticks, bones, tripwire hooks, ten stacked ink sacs and damaged leather boots.


 * Enchanting
 * "Unbreaking" can now be applied to any item with durability.
 * Armor, bows, fishing rods & swords can receive the enchantment directly without the use of enchanted books.
 * New enchantments for fishing rods that can bias the outcome of fishing.
 * "Lure" – reduces wait time to catch an item; increases the chance of catching fish and decreases the chance of junk and treasure.
 * "Luck of the Sea" – increases chance of getting treasure and decreases chance of getting junk.
 * Enchanted books can receive multiple enchantments at once.


 * Nether Portal
 * Can now have different width and height, to allow for design variations.
 * If the one in the Nether is big enough, ghasts can go through them.
 * Portals can be activated when any fire block appears inside the frame.
 * Before only the bottom-most blocks would work.
 * New nether portal building rules: Any rectangular size from 4×5 to 23×23.


 * Fog
 * Removed the thin fog around the player.
 * Fog is only at the edge of the visible chunks.


 * Death Screen
 * If the player dies and selects the 'Title screen' button, a prompt will ask if they are sure they want to quit, and give the player the options to go to the title screen or respawn and continue playing.

Command format

 * Scoreboard
 * Can now use statistics and achievements to create objectives.
 * Added 744 new objective criteria that were previously tracked only through statistics and achievements.


 * Commands


 * Sets the time to 1000 instead of 0.
 * Sets the time to 13000 instead of 12000.
 * Custom NBT data can be added via commands.
 * Works with, , and.
 * Syntax examples:
 * This removes the need to use external tools.
 * Will print renamed items' name by default in chat.
 * The chat will show the corresponding tooltips when hovered over.
 * This removes the need to use external tools.
 * Will print renamed items' name by default in chat.
 * The chat will show the corresponding tooltips when hovered over.
 * Will print renamed items' name by default in chat.
 * The chat will show the corresponding tooltips when hovered over.
 * The chat will show the corresponding tooltips when hovered over.


 * NBT format
 * tag.
 * Applies to items with durability.
 * Nullifies any usage dealt to the item.
 * List tags no longer need to be named.
 * No longer crashes when given the wrong type (integer/short).
 * Added .dat files in data folder for storing structure data.
 * Contains .dat called Village.dat, Fortress.dat (Nether Fortress), Temple.dat (Desert Temple, Jungle Temple and Witch Hut), Stronghold.dat, Mineshaft.dat and others.
 * NBT structure consists of the individual parts of each structure, labeled "children," the chunk it originates in, a tag called BB, and an ID for what type of structure it is.
 * The children tags have information on each part of the structure and the type of part it is.


 * Block/Item IDs
 * Can be referred to by their names, instead of numbers in commands.
 * Will be the only option in the future.
 * Necessary for the Plugin API.

General

 * Block and entity bounding boxes are now completely black instead of dark gray.


 * Resource packs
 * Complete menu overhaul with two columns, for selecting which amongst your downloaded resource packs should be rendered.
 * The ability to select multiple resource packs at once.
 * Resource packs at the top take precedence over those below, if files appear more than once.
 * Allows for non-manual merging of multiple packs.
 * For example: a sound pack and a different texture pack, etc.
 * Servers can now offer default resource packs.
 * Can be configured to be "enabled", "disabled" or "prompted".
 * The player is now able to add new sounds using resource packs, rather than replacing previously existing sounds.
 * Resource packs can remove, supplement, randomize and group sounds using JSON.
 * Maximum total size increased to 50 MB.


 * Sounds
 * Sounds and music are stored together in the new .minecraft/assets/sounds folder.
 * Music now pauses when pausing the game.


 * Lighting
 * Several lighting issues fixed.
 * A lot fewer "black spots" in terrain generation.
 * Some black spots occurrences have to be kept, in order to avoid a bug in world generation, associated with a complete removal of them.
 * Torch bugs in strongholds and mineshafts have been fixed.
 * The light level actually falls to 7 during thunderstorms.
 * Before it stayed at 12 like normal rain, but hostile mobs could spawn as if the light level was 7.
 * The clouds go black and the sky goes much darker.


 * Chat system
 * "Saved screenshot as" messages can be clicked to open the screenshot
 * It takes the player out of the game and into the ".minecraft" folder.
 * Ability to open a URL from the chat by clicking on it.
 * Names can be clicked to PM people.
 * Support for both hover and click events on the chat through.
 * Syntax example:.


 * Inventory
 * In creative mode, the display symbol for the Decoration Blocks tab, was changed from Rose to Peony.
 * The armor boxes go black when the cursor is away from them.
 * Putting the cursor over an armor box, will cause it to display what armor is put there.


 * Options
 * Grouped a few options into the Controls section:
 * Allowed rebinding of 1–9 hotkeys, screenshot key, cinematic camera toggle (can be rebinded and no longer has a default key) and camera switching.
 * Added sprint button, which will be kept engaged while held (it's left control by default).
 * Double tapping forward still works.
 * Music & Sounds
 * Now is divided into different classes, to control each one independently:
 * Master Volume, Music, Jukebox/Noteblocks, Weather, Blocks, Hostile Creatures, Friendly Creatures, Players and Ambient/Environment.
 * Video Settings
 * Render Distance is now a slider ranging from 2–16 chunks.
 * Max Framerate is now a slider ranging from 10–250 fps and then Unlimited.
 * Mipmapping can be set to levels 1–4 or disabled.
 * Anisotropic Filtering can be set to 2, 4, 8, 16 or disabled.
 * Super Secret Settings
 * Plays a random sound when clicked and cycles through various shaders: fxaa, art, bumpy, blobs2, pencil, color_convolve, deconverge, flip, invert, ntsc, outline, phosphor, scan_pincushion, sobel, bits, desaturate, green, blur, wobble, blobs, anti-alias and then back to normal.
 * The player can remove the shader by pressing F4.
 * Language Selection
 * Added 'Force Unicode Font' toggle, which allows the player to change whether Unicode font, is forced for text or not.


 * Network Code
 * Completely rewritten – uses Netty.
 * Most packets won't change, handshake and ping procedure redone.
 * There is now a packet length header.


 * Logging
 * Now done using Log4j 2.
 * Default logging location is now in logs/latest.logs; older logs are archived in logs/ - - -1.lg.gz with the number at the end increasing each startup.
 * The way logs are saved can be changed, for example: html pages, databases, errors only or no logging at all.


 * Server list
 * Can be refreshed using.
 * Added server icons.
 * Added support for multi-line MOTD comments, which do not go off-screen.
 * Hovering over the player count will show the name of up to 12 online players.


 * Minecraft Realms
 * Started preparing buying support internally.
 * Started offering an option to download the world map.


 * Statistics
 * Are now stored per world/server.
 * Achievement screen can be zoomed in and out using the scroll wheel.
 * Achievements don't appear on the achievements screen if more than five achievements need to be achieved first.
 * When a player earns an achievement, it is announced in chat.
 * This can be turned off on servers by changing a line in the server.properties file.
 * Can be hovered over to show an achievement tooltip.
 * Cannot be turned off in Singleplayer.
 * The achievements 'Time to Mine!', 'Time to Strike!' and 'Time to Farm!' are now obtainable by crafting the given tool with a material other than wood.


 * Achievements
 * Are stored per world/server on the same folder as statistics.
 * Statistics for blocks, items and mobs don't appear on their respective tab in the Statistics screen, until it is updated to be more than zero.

Release fixes
These fixes occurred between the last 1.7.2 development version, 1.7.1, and the release of 1.7.2.

Trivia

 * 1.7.2 is released exactly one year after Java Edition 1.4.2.
 * The Update that Changed the World was in development for over a year.
 * This is the last major release to have a 1.x.x release number.