Java Edition 1.6.1

1.6.1, known as the Horse Update, added many new features including horses, leads, coal blocks, carpets, resource packs and a new launcher.

General

 * Resource pack system
 * Replaces the texture pack system
 * A conversion tool which converts texture packs into resource packs was released by Dinnerbone and is available here.
 * Contains:
 * Textures
 * Sounds
 * Fonts (partially)
 * Language file
 * End credits
 * End Poem
 * Splash text
 * New "missing texture" texture
 * Attribute system
 * Item attributes using NBT tags:
 * Attributes can be additive, subtractive and multiplicative using a set value
 * Some items have default modifiers in place of previously hard-coded attributes
 * Examples of possible changes players could make: A bow that slows the holder, a helm that buffs health, etc.
 * Entity attributes:
 * These properties can now be changed as easily as any other NBT attribute
 * Entity speed, base health, base attack
 * Other properties like weapon damage/bow draw speed/sword swing speed are yet to follow
 * Splash screens
 * "HURNERJSGER?"
 * "What's up Doc?"

Gameplay

 * Status effects
 * Health Boost effect
 * Gives player 4 base health; extra health vanishes when the effect ends
 * Can be acquired ingame by the command /effect 21
 * Absorption effect
 * Gives player "absorption" health that cannot be replenished by natural regeneration or other effects, but would return every 30 seconds, regardless of the state of the rest of the health bar; absorption health vanishes when the effect ends
 * Can be acquired ingame by the command /effect 22 or by eating either tier of Golden Apple
 * Saturation effect
 * Causes food meter to be replenished by per tick.
 * Can be acquired ingame by the command /effect 23
 * Commands
 * Spreads certain players from an origin point
 * Has a Max Spread and Minimum Distance from player to player
 * Can be used with the teams scoreboard functionality to spread team members to the same location
 * Can use to play sound to player
 * Can change the pitch and/or volume
 * Can use sound from resource pack
 * Added arguments
 * Toggles natural health regeneration
 * Toggles the day-night cycle (the sun stops moving and stays where it is)
 * Toggles natural health regeneration
 * Toggles the day-night cycle (the sun stops moving and stays where it is)
 * Toggles the day-night cycle (the sun stops moving and stays where it is)
 * Toggles the day-night cycle (the sun stops moving and stays where it is)

Blocks & Items

 * Horse Armor
 * Exist in diamond, iron and gold variants
 * Cannot be crafted. Can only be found in most types of generated chests, including in Dungeons, Nether Fortresses, Desert Temples, and Jungle Temples
 * Horse Spawn Egg
 * Works like any other spawn egg
 * Just like naturally spawned Horses, these Horses will have one of seven base colours and one of five variations of markings
 * Sometimes a Donkey will be spawned instead
 * Hay Bale
 * Can be placed in all orientations
 * Crafted with wheat in a 3x3 arrangement
 * Lead
 * Can be used to bind mobs to fences or lead them around
 * Right click mob first, then right-click fence or right-click the mob again to get the leash back
 * Crafted with 4 string and 1 slimeball, yields 2 leads
 * Carpets
 * Crafted with 2 colors of wool in a horizontal line, yields 3 carpets
 * Can be placed on any block (even translucent ones)
 * Name Tag
 * Found in dungeon chests
 * Name it in an anvil, then right click a mob to name it.
 * Hardened Clay
 * Obtained by smelting a clay block in a furnace
 * Stained Clay
 * Comes in 16 colors, one for each dye.
 * Similar to wool.
 * Made by surrounding any dye with hardened clay
 * Block of Coal
 * Crafted with 3x3 coal.
 * Crafted only with coal, not charcoal.
 * Can be used as furnace fuel and smelts 80 items, more than 9 coal (72 smelted items).

Mobs

 * Horses
 * Creation assisted & inspired by DrZhark's Mo' Creatures mod
 * To tame, ride them and get thrown off a few times until hearts appear
 * Can be bred using Golden Apples & Golden Carrots
 * Drop Leather when killed
 * Health can be restored using Bread, Sugar, Hay Bales, Wheat, Apples, Golden Apples & Golden Carrots
 * Baby Horses can be grown the same way
 * Players riding saddled Horses are granted full control over the Horse's movement
 * Color, style, maximum health, jump height and speed vary between Horses
 * Open your inventory, right click a Horse or press the inventory key while holding LSHIFT and looking at a Horse to access their inventory to deal with their storage, armor and saddle
 * Rarely spawn in small groups
 * Donkeys
 * Like horses, but smaller and gray, and can carry chests with 15 slots on their saddles
 * Mules
 * Obtained by breeding a horse with a donkey
 * Can wear chests on their saddles, just like donkeys
 * Not breedable with horses, donkeys, or other mules
 * Skeleton and Zombie Horses
 * Introduced as the code of the normal Horse, although require third-party modifications to be used in the game. There is no current use at this time.

General

 * Support for Java 5 and PowerPC users will be dropped
 * If you have a PowerPC based computer and/or Java 5 installed, a warning will be shown at the main menu.
 * Internal chat system
 * Lots of messages should be translated now that were not previously
 * Messages are now better modularized
 * Server messages can be sent by their code-defined name, allowing the client to utilize the correct translation according to their language settings
 * Color can be specifically designated, preventing leakage into further messages
 * Updated language files and fixed missing strings
 * Launcher
 * Increases performance and stability
 * Minecraft game icon changed to a crafting table, presumably to differentiate between game and launcher
 * Allows LWJGL to be updated, fixing many launcher bugs
 * Supports multiple versions/installs
 * Self updatable.
 * New password storing system
 * More user friendly.
 * A major step towards the Plugin API.
 * New authentication system - "Yggdrasil", which is more secure and has more features
 * If downloaded for free, it won't let you go ahead and do stuff on other worlds, it'll only let you play the demo world. :(
 * Accounts are mandatory.
 * Minecraft Realms
 * Added handling of invitations
 * Added resetting realm with one of provided realm templates
 * Added viewing backups for a realm and the ability to restore them
 * Added setting the owner of a realm as game master operator
 * Added confirmation screens for various actions such as deleting a realm
 * Ability to leave someone else’s realm that previously accepted invitation for
 * Fixed game mode and game difficulty issue
 * Minor GUI fixes for better usability

Gameplay

 * Riding mounts
 * When riding a mob, its health is on the Heads-up display
 * When riding on an entity, dismounting has changed from right-clicking the entity to using the Sneak key ( by default)
 * Boat controls have been changed from the, , and keys to mouse control
 * Respiration enchantment
 * Now also helps seeing underwater
 * Changed the idea of mob difficulty
 * Regional difficulty: The longer you spend in one area, the harder it gets
 * Scales with difficulty - items, enchants or AI improve with difficulty
 * Tooltips
 * Added extra tooltip info in the search tab for the creative inventory, which shows what category a block/item is in
 * Tooltips for swords, pickaxes, shovels, axes, and potions show how much damage the sword/tool does and what effect a potion will give
 * Status effect
 * Balanced to improve gameplay
 * Instant Health nerfed by 33% (heals only 4 health points/2 hearts at level I)
 * Regeneration nerfed by 50% (takes 50 ticks/2.5 seconds to restore 1 health point/.5 heart at level I)
 * Hunger
 * Natural health regeneration now costs hunger points/saturation points
 * Creative mode
 * It is no longer possible to break blocks with swords in Creative mode

Blocks & Items

 * '''Charcoal
 * Retextured, with more brown shading to differentiate from coal
 * Lapis Lazuli Block
 * Retextured subtly, it now has a border around it
 * Saddle
 * You can now put a saddle on a horse
 * Redstone Comparator
 * Now give out a signal for Cauldrons and End Portal frames depending on their state
 * Cauldrons give from zero signal (empty) to three signal strength (full) depending on water inside
 * End Portal frame varies between zero and fifteen signal strength, depending on if an Eye of Ender is present
 * Golden Apple
 * Golden apples now require gold ingots instead of gold nuggets to craft
 * Golden apples now give Regeneration II for 10 seconds and both tiers give Absorption for 1 min 30 seconds
 * Glistering Melon
 * Glistering melons now require 8 gold nuggets
 * Spawn Eggs
 * Spawn eggs work on water
 * Command Blocks
 * Can no longer be mined or destroyed in Survival mode
 * Lava
 * Now decays properly
 * Flint and Steel
 * Now loses durability when igniting TNT

Mobs

 * All mobs
 * Mobs named "Dinnerbone" or "Grumm" are now flipped upside down
 * Now spawn in groups again
 * Zombies
 * Now have a small chance to spawn additional zombies when damaged or not being looked at
 * Able to lock onto the player from 40 blocks away (formerly 16 blocks).
 * Mobbing zombies can now move when further than 32 blocks from player
 * Villagers
 * Now have sounds for trading, getting hurt and other things
 * Spiders
 * Now have a chance to spawn with potion effects

World Generation

 * Deserts
 * No longer contain water lakes
 * The Nether
 * Added chest generation in Nether Fortresses

Fixes
78 bugs fixed
 * – Green arrow bug on maps in frames
 * – Ping packet doesn't include host information
 * – 'doFiretick' makes fire to not extinguish. Lighting makes fire all over the place!
 * – Keyboard Unresponsive on OS X
 * – Teleporting to Large Numbers Creates a Broken Error
 * – Command block choosing wrong people / Selecting players cross-dimensional
 * – Mobs not realizing they killed their attacker and trying to attack empty space
 * – Running at a high resolution causes large portions of the screen to be UNCLICKABLE
 * – Minecarts with Furnace consume coal in creative mode
 * – Death messages in english regardless of the selected language (Multiplayer)
 * – Beacon Block Incorrect Texture When Surrounded by Blocks
 * – Mouse "Back" and "Forward" open menu in windowed mode.
 * – Server command " doesn't display the full list of players
 * – Mobs spawn and then quickly despawn in peaceful. Looks like the "ender-porting-out-of-water" effect.
 * – Dogs wont stop snarling after punched by someone else
 * – Damaged Anvils do not show damage in inventory or item frame
 * – Console command and set console for block in Command Block merges when in windowed mode
 * – Zombie villagers are able to despawn during curing process
 * – You can't get "The End?" achievement
 * – Sleeping while in a minecart produces a graphical glitch
 * –  tag freezes mobs
 * – Jack-o-lantern name is mis-punctuated
 * – Squid taking damage while in water
 * – Hard to spawn squid
 * – Regular skeleton's melee damage is unaffected by the sword type
 * – Unable to play game unless LWJGL is manually replaced
 * – Boats/Minecarts and Ender Pearls don't mix
 * – Placing water source into some blocks yields no drops
 * – 3D Anaglyph biome color corruption
 * – After the last use of a bow you get a glitch bow that when dropped and picked up again duplicates
 * – Death counter does not update
 * – Lava decay fails to schedule block update
 * – Skeletons attacking like zombies when hit in creative
 * – Ctrl + Alt + Esc crashes minecraft
 * – Brewing stand feet's sides are transparent when placed against a wall
 * – Silverfish breaking blocks when " " is set to false
 * – Switching from windowed to fullscreen and back moves the point of view
 * – Water/Lava from bucket replacing ladder
 * – Splash potions particles are incorrect
 * – /scoreboard syntax missing (/help scoreboard)
 * – Argument "team" do not work with "!" for other players
 * – Cactus texture error when near a wall
 * – In multiplayer screen holding shift and pressing "down" without selecting any server crashes the game
 * – Can't use scroll wheel in crash reports
 * – Single player: "java.io.IOException: Stream Closed" when quitting game
 * – Item count / numbers randomly flickering in item bar, inventory, workbench
 * – Eye of Ender does not always lead to the nearest Stronghold
 * – Scoreboard problem with "seeFriendlyInvisibles"
 * – Memory leak switching texture packs
 * – 1.5 HD Texture pack stitched images greater than 2048 resolution results in massive performance drops.
 * – Certain death message will print "null" as the player/mob name that caused the death
 * – Command Blocks breaking easily in survival
 * – Can get permanently stuck in a minecart in a nether portal
 * – Minecart collision boxes are briefly positioned wrong
 * – Minecarts off track float
 * – Sitting in minecart is higher than it should be
 * – Minecart hit box too large
 * – New Client and Server Outputs Increase Loading Time
 * – Zombies with increased health don't deal damage
 * – Pick block from inventory in creative doesn't preserve size of stacks
 * – Minecraft can't handle 4096x4096 or larger cloud textures
 * – Stacked Entity Spawner creating mass duplicate ghost entities
 * – Wither is still named "Withern" in German
 * – Cannot use resolution clock and compass textures with resolutions higher than 16x16
 * – Receiving very high amount of damage at once creates ghost mode in multiplayer
 * – Achievement "We Need to Go Deeper" rewarded for going through an End Portal
 * – Entities other than the player can't leave the end
 * – When under resistance effects above 5, /kill command does not work.
 * – lang files for en_US is gramaticly incorrect at death.fell.finish.item
 * – No error report when minecraft crashes
 * – Freezes When Moving
 * – Fire Animation Jumps and skips frames.
 * – Sticky and unregistering keys during normal Minecraft play only, AMD processor driver conflict?
 * – Text misplaced on Direct connect, Rename World screen
 * – Shift clicking on the destroy item button in multiplayer doesn't work.
 * – Crash when language file of currently selected language is missing
 * – If a team name has "-" in it, the argument for seeing if anyone is in the team doesn't work
 * – Instant health effect set to a 29, 61, 93...253 value kills any player without any death message