Pretty Scary Update



The Pretty Scary Update was a major update, labeled as 1.4.2, officially released on Thursday, October 25, 2012. Among the main changes are a number of new Mobs and variants (Witches, Bats, Zombie Villagers, Wither Skeletons), wearable and placeable Heads, a new boss (the Wither), the Command Block, the Anvil, the Beacon, new food (Potatoes, Carrots, Pumpkin Pies), Carrots on Sticks for controlling pigs and new decoration items (such as Item Frames, Flower Pots, Cobblestone Walls).

Development on the Pretty Scary Update began directly following, which was released on August 16, 2012. 15 development snapshots for 1.4 from to  were released. The 1.4 Pre-release was unveiled on October 19, 2012, so that modders can start preparing their mods before the launch on October 24, 2012.

Mojang found a mob suffocation bug after this was released, and was forced to delay the launch by a day. The 1.4.1 Prerelease was unveiled on October 23, 2012, and the release was pushed back a day.

Mojang then found yet another bug, and fixed "a severe memory leak in the server". This, as well as correct rendering of fences and cobble stairs, came in the 1.4.2 Prerelease, released on October 24, 2012. 1.4.2 was the first official release of 1.4, available through the launcher on October 25, 2012.

Mojang then released the 1.4.3 prerelease on November 1, 2012. Mojang said "Since the release of the Pretty Scary Update we’ve been super-busy trying to fix as many reported issues as possible. We’ve now reached the point where we’ve fixed so many that we spend more and more time wondering “haven’t we fixed that already?” and “I wonder if this will break anything else…" This update addressed over 100 bugs, with the main bugs addressed being: The missing song “where are we now”, random falling damage due to lag, falling damage when riding minecarts, enchanted book exploit, slimes have correct collision box, and signs no longer losing text client-side.

Mojang released a 1.4.4 prerelease on November 8, 2012. This addressed two main issues in the 1.4.3 prerelease, being the “unable to swim upwards” bug and the “placed torches jump between walls” bug. 1.4.4 was officially through the launcher on November 14, 2012.

Mojang had to patch 1.4 yet again, and released 1.4.5 on November 16, 2012, to fix the broken LAN server functionality. As this a issue prevalent client-side only, 1.4.5 clients are able to play on 1.4.4 servers. Mojang has announced that 1.4.5 will be officially released on November 20.

The official name of the update was revealed at PAX Prime 2012 during the Minecraft panel, then later with snapshot. Dinnerbone first revealed the 1.4 release date with snapshot, where he stated that he was fully into the "Prepare for release" mode.

The Pretty Scary Update was originally intended to include the Modding API, however this has been pushed to a later version.

Lighting bugs present in 1.3.2 were only partially fixed. Dinnerbone first introduced changes in snapshots. Dinnerbone tweeted to revert back and push this to 1.5. Other changes postponed to a later version of Minecraft (most likely 1.5) including redstone changes, and a rendering overhaul.

Trailer
A trailer documenting some of the Pretty Scary Update's major features was released on Mojang's official YouTube channel on the 26th of October, 2012. The trailer was made by Hat Films, who have made update trailers for Mojang in the past.