Java Edition Beta

Beta is the current Minecraft version, replacing Alpha. It was announced on Notch's blog on December 11 2010 and released nine days later, on December 20, 2010. As well as some minor updates, the transition from Alpha saw a 50% price increase (therefore making the cost 25% off the full price), a change in the disclaimer (Notch removed the line that said "all future updates will be provided free of charge") and minor updates to the main website. Despite the increase in price, however, one fact that is often overlooked is that, rather than doubling the price during the transition to Beta, as Notch promised he would, he only increased it by 50%.

Many updates were included such as:


 * Many minor bug fixes
 * Chest inventory screen closes once the player moves too far away or the chest is removed or blown up.
 * Server-Side Inventory
 * Fixed /kill
 * Gravel and sand now fall properly in Multiplayer
 * Tooltips in inventory - When you mouse over an item, its name appears
 * Notch introduced leaf decay again with a slight difference
 * Eggs can now be thrown,have a chance of spawning a chicken when hit, and make a sound when spawned
 * Clan cloaks for Mojang members
 * Something very rare.
 * The player now has support to wear a cape.

Many bugs have been found since the release of Beta; some Mac OS users weren't able to play until December 21st during which a fix was provided. In addition, there were extremely bad lag problems, seriously affecting gameplay. Consequently, many users took to flaming Notch for the early Beta troubles.

The aforementioned "something very rare" is a deadmau5 skin. Before it was discovered, there was much doubt as to whether it really existed or not. User-made hoaxes were created and released onto the Minecraft Forums, provoking an outlash of anger from players.