Java Edition 1.4.2

1.4.2, the first release of the Pretty Scary Update, was a major update to Minecraft released on October 25, 2012, which added a number of new mobs (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 and pumpkin pies), carrots on sticks for controlling pigs and new decoration items (such as item frames, flower pots and cobblestone walls).

A pre-release for 1.4.2 was released on October 24, 2012, though the full release of 1.4.2 is identical to this pre-release.

Blocks

 * Command blocks
 * Runs editable commands when triggered by redstone
 * Intended for adventure maps
 * Can only be edited by ops in Creative mode, as long as  in server.properties is enabled
 * Only obtainable using
 * Can operate in silent mode where it doesn't display commands in the chat box.


 * Beacons
 * Intended as an endgame block
 * Continuously glows and gives a selected status effect to players within 16 blocks while beaming a beacon of light directly upwards (as bright as glowstone)
 * Activated by building a solid pyramid of iron/gold/emerald/diamond blocks underneath and selecting an effect
 * The cheapest configuration requires 9 blocks, while the best configuration requires 164 blocks
 * Has to be directly exposed to skylight to work
 * Building square platforms of increasing size and the same material per layer will activate it and increase range and status effect selection
 * Viable materials are iron, gold, diamond and emerald blocks
 * Changing selected status effects costs 1 emerald, diamond, gold ingot or iron ingot
 * Unlockable effects, with increasing amount of required layers of blocks required:
 * Speed and Haste
 * Resistance and Jump Boost
 * Strength
 * When all 4 layers of blocks underneath are built correctly, a second status effect can be chosen
 * This second status effect is Regeneration or tier II of the previously chosen effect
 * Effects given by the Beacon will have less intrusive particles than others on the screen, such as those of potions


 * Anvils
 * Used for repairing and combining enchanted items as well as for renaming any item/block at the cost of experience levels
 * Tools can also be repaired using one piece of their material
 * Enchantments that are the same are upgraded by one level as long as they are both the same level and the higher level exists
 * Conflicting enchantments will be removed and only the first one will be kept
 * Becomes damaged from using and dropping it - Damage persists in inventory and splits up into 3 categories: Anvil, Slightly Damaged Anvil & Very Damaged Anvil
 * Can be placed in 4 orientations, but can't be moved by pistons
 * Experience level cost depends on enchantment levels & rarities, whether the item will be renamed and whether the item has been used with an anvil before - Maximum experience level cost is 39 levels, unless in Creative mode
 * For a more detailed explanation on how enchantments are combined using the anvil, see the Anvil mechanics page
 * Is affected by gravity and does 1 heart of damage to mobs and players it falls on per block it fell, excluding the first one - Players killed by a falling anvil cause the death message "Player was squashed by a falling anvil" to appear in chat
 * Certain blocks are destroyed when an anvil falls on them: levers, buttons, torches, redstone torches, redstone repeaters, flower pots, rails & mob heads


 * Flower Pots
 * Lets players plant all kinds of saplings, mushrooms, flowers, cacti, dead shrubs and ferns
 * Using pick block on it gives the potted plant
 * Right-click it with something to plant it, hit it to get both back


 * Cobblestone walls
 * Available in cobblestone and moss stone variants
 * Behave like fences - Connect to each other, to other blocks and to fence gates & have a 1.5 blocks high collision box
 * Have a different, higher shape in corners and when blocks are placed on them


 * Mob heads
 * Wither skeleton skull has a chance of dropping when a wither skeleton is killed by a player
 * Also exist for creepers, zombies, skeletons and players
 * Can be put on the ground in 16 orientations and hung on walls
 * Can be worn
 * Using external editors or mods player skulls can be assigned to specific players - They then have tooltip "Player's Head"
 * Add the NBT tag "SkullOwner" -> (player name) on the skull items.


 * Wooden Buttons
 * Unlike stone buttons, can be activated by arrows
 * Requires 1 unit of wood planks to craft

Items

 * Potatoes
 * Potatoes can be planted on hydrated soil and drop 1-4 potatoes when fully grown
 * Can be grown instantly using bone meal
 * Rarely drop poisonous potatoes
 * Potatoes can be smelted to receive a baked potato
 * Potatoes restore hunger, poisoned potatoes restore  hunger and have a chance to poison the player, and baked potatoes restore  hunger


 * Carrots
 * Carrots can be planted on hydrated soil and drop 2-4 carrots when fully grown
 * Can be grown instantly using bone meal
 * Golden carrots can be crafted with a carrot surrounded with 8 gold nuggets
 * Carrots restore hunger and golden carrots restore  hunger


 * Carrot on a stick
 * Used to control pigs
 * When held, it dictates the direction pigs players are riding will head in
 * Nearby pigs flock towards players holding it
 * Pigs start slow but end up going about 5 blocks per second
 * Slowly loses durability when riding pigs
 * The pigs 'eat' the carrot eventually, leaving the player a fishing rod and will require another carrot to continue riding
 * Can be to give the pig a short speed boost
 * This takes up a chunk of the durability
 * To craft, the carrot must be placed at a diagonal below the fishing rod


 * Pumpkin pie
 * Restores hunger
 * The crafting recipe is shapeless: assemble a pumpkin, egg and sugar into the crafting inventory


 * Nether star
 * Drops from withers
 * Used to craft beacons
 * Glows like an enchanted item
 * When dropped, it will take more than twice as long to despawn than other items


 * Potion of Night Vision
 * Brewed by adding a golden carrot to an awkward potion


 * Potion of Invisibility
 * Effect now hides the nametag and cape
 * Mobs only attack the player when they walk into them or attack them
 * Splash potions of invisibility can also make mobs partially invisible, although eyes of some mobs still show
 * Brewed by adding a fermented spider eye to a Potion of Night Vision

Mobs

 * Wither
 * Three-headed flying player-created boss mob shooting projectiles at any mob that isn't undead and players
 * Place 4 pieces of soul sand in a T-shape and place 3 wither skeleton skulls on top to summon it
 * After spawning, it flashes blue, builds up health, grows slightly and is invincible for a few seconds - Then it explodes and starts attacking players and mobs
 * Each head can fire projectiles, so-called wither skulls, at different targets - Projectiles explode on impact
 * Shoots two kinds of projectile - a blue one from the little heads, targeting mobs and a dark one from the big head targeting players
 * When hit by projectiles, players get the Wither II effect, which acts like a slower poison effect that can kill and turns affected players' health bars' hearts black
 * Constantly regenerates health
 * Gains wither armor when taken down to half health, making it immune to arrows
 * Drops a nether star when killed
 * Darkens the sky when spawned in the Overworld


 * Wither skeletons
 * Carry and rarely drop Stone swords when killed by players
 * Drop bones, coal, and rarely wither skulls
 * Give players Wither effect when hitting them
 * Spawn in nether fortresses
 * Will rarely, depending on difficulty, spawn with the ability to pick up armor, head wear, items, blocks, weapons and tools - Armor and tools & swords are equipped automatically and will be exchanged for better gear when possible - Items that are picked up will have a 100% chance of dropping after dying - When killed, they drop what they are holding
 * All equipped gear is functional - Swords and tools do more damage on attacks, armor protects the mob
 * Rare tool drops are now damaged
 * More advanced gear is more likely to spawn with mobs when playing on harder difficulties and rarely drops when the mob is killed by players


 * Witch
 * Looks like an offshoot villager
 * Throws splash potions of poison, slowness, weakness, and instant damage at players
 * Holds a potion and wiggles its nose when attacking
 * Has a hat, which sometimes emits particles
 * Drinks potions of instant health and fire resistance to defend themselves in combat
 * Is immune to 80% of splash potions' effects
 * Drops sticks, glowstone, redstone, gunpowder, sugar, spider eyes, and glass bottles when killed
 * Has a chance to drop the potion it is holding if killed by players
 * Spawn exclusively in Witch Huts in swamps


 * Bats
 * Hang on the ceiling when idle, starts flying when players come near
 * Spawn in low light levels
 * Sleep during the day
 * Don't trigger pressure plates or tripwire
 * All boss mobs
 * Now show their name above health bars

Non-mob entities

 * Item frames
 * All items and blocks can be framed
 * Clocks, compasses and maps function - Maps show only one marker, the frame itself
 * Mounted maps are marked on copies of the map
 * Using pick block on it gives the framed item/block

World generation

 * Witch hut
 * Generates in swamps

Gameplay

 * Sounds
 * Added sounds for placing wood, stone, plant, sand and gravel-like blocks
 * Added sounds for walking on sand, gravel, soul sand, grass block and stone
 * Added sounds for zombies, skeletons, cows, pigs, spiders, endermen, ghasts, silverfish, magma cubes, wolves, the ender dragon, bats and the anvil.
 * Added sounds for curing a zombie, infecting a villager and a remedy sound.
 * Added sounds for setting things on fire and shearing sheep
 * Added sounds for climbing ladders and riding minecarts
 * Added a sound for leveling up which is played every 5 levels
 * Added constant noise to liquids


 * NBT tags
 * Tag for items to have lore
 * Tag for mobs to determine whether they can despawn

Command format

 * Specific commands
 * Changes difficulty
 * = peaceful
 * = easy
 * = normal
 * = hard
 * Changes the player's own or other players' spawnpoint to where they are standing or to specified coordinates
 *   
 * Alias for
 * Changes the current weather and optionally set the duration for the new weather
 * Look up and change gamerules regarding command block output
 * - Whether or not the output of command blocks executing commands should be sent to the chat as if a player had executed them
 * - Whether fire should spread
 * - Whether mobs should drop items
 * - Whether mobs should naturally spawn
 * - Whether blocks should have drops (does not work for paintings)
 * - Whether the player should keep items in their inventory if they die.
 * - Whether creepers, endermen, withers and villagers should be able to change blocks.
 * Clears a specified player's entire inventory or remove only one block/item from it
 * - Whether mobs should drop items
 * - Whether mobs should naturally spawn
 * - Whether blocks should have drops (does not work for paintings)
 * - Whether the player should keep items in their inventory if they die.
 * - Whether creepers, endermen, withers and villagers should be able to change blocks.
 * Clears a specified player's entire inventory or remove only one block/item from it
 * Clears a specified player's entire inventory or remove only one block/item from it


 * Command target selectors
 * Available selectors:
 * - Closest player
 * - All players
 * - Random player
 * Can have arguments specified in  using the syntax , where   is the argument
 * Available arguments:
 * - Coordinates
 * - Range
 * - Gamemode
 * - Minimum experience level
 * - Maximum experience level
 * - Minimum range
 * Special argument only usable with :
 * - the maximum count of players to return. Numbers below 0 will make it return the last x amount of entries

Blocks

 * Logs


 * Placement now depends on the surface it is placed on, rather than the direction of the player
 * Placed on the side of a block, the log will be horizontal
 * Placed on the top or bottom of a block, the log will be vertical


 * Stairs
 * Now connect to other stairs to form corner stairs


 * Spawners
 * Added NBT tags to change a few key spawning rules
 * Spawning range can now be changed
 * Maximum amount of spawned entities within spawning range can now be changed
 * Horizontal spawning radius can now be changed
 * Spawned mobs can wear and carry any items and blocks as well as have a custom drop rate of held items
 * Added an NBT tag for mobs to decide whether they can despawn
 * Added an NBT tag for mobs to decide whether they are invincible


 * Repeaters
 * Can now be locked by powering their sides with another repeater
 * When locked, they show a little bedrock barrier in place of the delay indicator torch and won't change their output signal


 * Trapdoors
 * Can now be placed on the top half of blocks
 * Placement works similar to that of slabs and stairs


 * Buttons
 * Now stays active for 0.2 seconds longer
 * New crafting recipe – Only 1 stone block required


 * Fire
 * Now spreads more aggressively depending on difficulty


 * Saplings'''
 * Decreased hitbox size


 * TNT
 * Is now triggered by flaming arrows
 * Doors, Trapdoors, Levers & Buttons
 * No longer triggerable with the left mouse button

Items

 * Potions
 * Can now have any available potion effects, level and duration
 * Data is saved using NBT tags, but potions retain their original color


 * Maps
 * Are now crafted as an Empty Map and will become a real map by right-clicking
 * Start out at their closest zoom level and can be extended by adding more paper
 * Players see other players moving around on the same map
 * Craft an existing map with an empty map to receive an extra copy of the map
 * Removed text overlay
 * Are labeled 'Map #0' and so on
 * Now align to a grid and can be stacked to 64
 * When outside a map's range, the player is displayed as a small circle at the edge


 * Armor
 * Diamond Armor sleeves now have a notch on the inner side
 * Completely revamped leather armor
 * Can now be dyed in 16,777,216 potential different colors
 * Putting it in a crafting grid with dyes applies all colors
 * Dyed armor's tooltip will display Dyed
 * Right-click dyed armor on cauldrons to wash it and remove some water from the cauldron
 * Changed item and model color and texture
 * Now uses two overlayed textures, one being the color


 * New textures
 * Updated textures for leather armor, bread, raw chicken, cooked chicken, raw beef, steak, raw porkchop, cooked porkchop and apple.

Mobs

 * Tamed wolves
 * Collars can now be dyed by dye on the wolf


 * Iron golems
 * Now attack creepers, slimes and magma cubes
 * Can become aggressive towards players depending on whether the player is liked or disliked by the villagers of a village


 * All hostile mobs
 * Will now jump down to players as long as they can survive the fall
 * Depending on difficulty, they are willing to take more damage


 * Villagers
 * Improved villagers to make them more self-aware
 * The inhabitants of a village can now like and dislike specific players
 * Trading will make the villagers like the player
 * Hurting villagers or their iron golems will make the villagers dislike a player
 * When players are highly disliked, iron golems of that village can become aggressive towards those players
 * After a villager dies to natural causes (mobs excluded) while a player is within 16 blocks or if a mob kills a villager, no baby villagers will be produced in the next few minutes
 * Changed and added some trades to counteract emerald farming and improve gameplay
 * Will show particle effects indicating a change in player reputation


 * Pigs
 * Can now accelerate to up to 5 m/s
 * Now drop their saddle when killed


 * Slimes
 * Now spawn in swamps at night


 * Sheep
 * Sheep from spawn eggs can now spawn natural colored sheep (white, pink, etc.)


 * Creepers
 * Will start exploding when they hit the ground, with explosions being more imminent with higher falls
 * Can now have custom explosion radius and fuse timer using edited mob spawners and NBT tags


 * Zombies
 * Will now rarely spawn with armor of all kinds, sometimes enchanted
 * Will now rarely, depending on difficulty, spawn with the ability to pick up armor, head wear, items, blocks, weapons and tools
 * Armor and tools & swords are equipped automatically and will be exchanged for better gear when possible
 * Items that are picked up will have a 100% chance of dropping after dying
 * All equipped gear is functional - Swords and tools do more damage on attacks, armor protects the mob
 * Rare tool drops are now damaged
 * More advanced gear is more likely to spawn with mobs when playing on harder difficulties and drops rarely when the mob is killed by players
 * When wearing helmets, they will not burn up - Instead, all damage is applied to the helmet
 * Using modified mob spawners they can have a custom drop rate of items and hold and wear all kinds of items and blocks
 * Now have a chance, depending on difficulty, to infect villagers after killing them - The villager then gets replaced with a villager zombie on death
 * On Normal difficulty, there is a 50% chance of infection and on Hard difficulty there is a 100% chance of infection
 * Infected baby villagers turn into baby villager zombies
 * Right-clicking a zombie villager under the influence of a weakness potion with a golden apple will invert their potion effect, make them wiggle slightly and eventually turn back into a villager
 * Rarely spawn holding iron swords or shovels
 * When holding something in their hands, their arms move upwards when attacking
 * Added baby zombie, which is only spawnable using mods or third-party tools
 * Baby zombies are 50% faster, don't age, don't burn up in the sun and can wear armor
 * Will now rarely drop carrots and potatoes when killed by players
 * Have a 25% chance of spawning with a pumpkin on their head during Halloween.


 * Skeletons
 * Will now rarely spawn with armor of all kinds, sometimes enchanted
 * Will now rarely, depending on difficulty, spawn with the ability to pick up armor, head wear, items, blocks, weapons and tools
 * Armor and tools & swords are equipped automatically and will be exchanged for better gear when possible
 * Items that are picked up will have a 100% chance of dropping after dying
 * All equipped gear is functional - Swords and tools do more damage on attacks, armor protects the mob
 * Rare tool drops are now damaged
 * More advanced gear is more likely to spawn with mobs when playing on harder difficulties and rarely drops when the mob is killed by players
 * When wearing helmets, they will not burn up - Instead all damage is applied to the helmet
 * Using modified mob spawners they can have a custom drop rate of items and hold and wear all kinds of items and blocks
 * Rarely spawn with enchanted bows which can be dropped when killed by players
 * Have a 25% chance of spawning with a pumpkin on their head during Halloween.


 * Zombie Pigmen
 * Will now rarely, depending on difficulty, spawn with the ability to pick up armor, head wear, items, blocks, weapons and tools - Armor and tools & swords are equipped automatically and will be exchanged for better gear when possible - Items that are picked up will have a 100% chance of dropping after dying - When killed, they drop what they are holding
 * All equipped gear is functional - Swords and tools do more damage on attacks, armor protects the mob
 * Rare tool drops are now damaged
 * More advanced gear is more likely to spawn with mobs when playing on harder difficulties and rarely drops when the mob is killed by players
 * Using modified mob spawners they can have a custom drop rate of items and hold and wear all kinds of items and blocks
 * Rarely carry enchanted golden swords
 * Dropped Golden Swords now sometimes are damaged
 * Added baby Zombie Pigman, which is only spawnable using mods or third-party tools

Non-mob entities

 * Paintings
 * Added Wither painting

World generation

 * Extreme Hills biome
 * Silverfish blocks now rarely generate in Extreme Hills biomes
 * On average, nearly one Silverfish block is generated per Extreme Hills chunk
 * Villages
 * Carrots and potatoes can be found in farms in villages

Gameplay

 * Multiplayer
 * Spawn protection now is disabled if there's nothing in ops.txt
 * Spawn protection radius can now be changed in the server.properties file


 * Creative inventory
 * Items can now be cloned by using Pick Block on them - An item stack with the highest amount of items possible in it will be created
 * Items can now be shift-clicked around on the survival inventory screen


 * Inventory
 * Pressing the 1-9 hotkeys while hovering over an item will exchange that item with the one from the corresponding hotbar slot
 * Status effects now cause the inventory window to be off-center regardless of screen aspect ratio


 * Portals
 * Mobs, items and projectiles now pass through them, preserving momentum
 * Entities will pass through instantly, but at a longer "cooldown"
 * Portals will allow fire burning entities like blazes to leave the Nether and potentially burn things
 * Portals will teleport an entity relative to where it entered
 * Players are now positioned correctly when going through Nether Portals
 * Nether Portals are now instant for players in Creative mode


 * Adventure mode
 * Blocks can now be mined with the proper tools
 * Blocks can now be placed


 * Breeding
 * Chickens now use seeds instead of wheat to breed
 * Pigs now use carrots instead of wheat to breed


 * Village mechanics
 * The player can now restore a desolate village or create a completely new village'''


 * Experience
 * Now awarded for fishing and breeding

Command format

 * Can be used to give and take entire experience levels by appending "L" to the number
 * Works with relative coordinates
 * Items spawned are picked up almost instantly now
 * Works with relative coordinates
 * Items spawned are picked up almost instantly now
 * Items spawned are picked up almost instantly now

General

 * Server list
 * Server IPs can now be hidden individually when editing or adding a server
 * Server version is now displayed left of the connection bars
 * Server ping tooltip now shows if the server and client have mismatching protocol versions
 * Mismatching servers can't be joined


 * Settings menu
 * Renamed Chat Settings to Multiplayer Settings
 * Added an option for cape-owners to hide their capes in-game
 * Added Fullscreen and VSync toggles
 * Though this is not in the settings menu, the user may go into the options.txt in %appdata% and toggle advancedToolTips. This shows them the item IDs of everything and the durability of tools and armor.
 * Worlds can now be re-created from the world selection screen


 * F3 debug screen
 * The piechart is now shown when using shift+F3 instead of vice versa
 * Added the cardinal direction and the degree value to the f value indicating the direction the player is facing
 * Now shows which chunk and where in that chunk the player is in on X and Z values
 * Pressing while holding  will toggle the auto-pause when the Minecraft window loses focus
 * Pressing while holding  will toggle detailed item descriptions, which additionally show item id, damage value, color code, tool/armor/weapon damage and map zoom level and scale on the tooltip


 * Language files
 * Updated language files


 * Superflat world type
 * Now customizable and made up of layers specified with block id, data value and height
 * Biome can now be changed
 * All generation settings are stored in a preset, which can be shared and re-used
 * Terrain can now be decorated and structures other than villages can spawn
 * Default presets:
 * Classic Flat -
 * Tunnelers' Dream -
 * Water World -
 * Overworld -
 * Snowy Kingdom -
 * Bottomless Pit -
 * Desert -
 * Redstone Ready -
 * Preset format with example: 95;35:2;2x20;1;stronghold – 95 is the format version, followed by a semicolon and the layer information. Every new layer is separated by a comma and must consist of the block id and can additionally have   appended to specify   as the data value. Before that, the player can put   to specify that this layer should be put   times. After a semicolon follows the biome id. After another semicolon follows all structures to be generated, including their options.

Fixes
29 bugs fixed


 * Mobs glitching through wooden floors
 * Mob AI considering cobblestone walls as blocks of normal height
 * Mobs randomly suffocating
 * Mobs falling through blocks
 * Zombies not burning in the sun
 * Mob Spawners spawning mobs too quickly
 * Redstone Repeaters getting stuck in 'on' state
 * A number of minor font issues
 * A bug that allowed any item to be placed in the armor slots
 * Invisible falling sand entities
 * command only working for ops
 * not working correctly
 * not working correctly
 * Graphical glitch with chests and Ender Chests
 * Partially fixed lighting issues
 * The second layer on skins not being placed correctly when sneaking
 * Blazes not properly spawning in Nether Fortresses
 * Various Nether Portal fixes
 * Pets teleporting around randomly
 * Wet wolves looking way too scary
 * PvP-disabled servers still allowing players to set other players on fire using Fire Aspect enchanted swords
 * Entities in minecarts becoming invisible
 * Stairs, slabs & fences glitching visually sometimes
 * Fixed a severe memory leak in the server
 * Corrected rendering of fences and cobblestone walls
 * The player can no longer attempt to connect to an outdated server (only when the version is shown)

Release fixes
These fixes occurred between the 1.4.1 pre-release and 1.4.2.


 * Fixed a severe memory leak in the server.
 * Corrected rendering of fences and cobblestone walls.
 * The player can no longer attempt to connect to an outdated server (only when the version is shown).


 * From 1.4.1
 * – Cracked effect sometimes remains when a zombie is interrupted while attempting to break down a door.
 * – Fireballs float in mid-air.
 * – Entities such as villagers and cows fall through blocks and suffocate.
 * –  is ignored by the client.
 * – Stairs can glitch in weird places.