Villager

A Villager, also known by many players as a Testificate, is a passive NPC (non-player character) that spawns and moves about in NPC Villages. Their characteristic look is dominated by their large, bald heads, green eyes, unibrows, and long, protruding noses. There are different types, distinguished by the color of their robes, and signifying their role in the community. Some spawn around the village, although most spawn inside buildings and leave once the door is opened. They spawn at their respective buildings corresponding to the role they have. As of Beta 1.9 Pre-Release 3, there are 6 unique skins for the villagers which are found in the minecraft.jar file. Another, unused villager skin is a file called "villager.png" that appears to be the skin of "Steve" with some modifications.

Behavior
Villagers act more like passive mobs. They will randomly look at the player, and wander the area of the village. They do not attack if attacked, however they will be knocked back. When attacked, they will not run away like other passive mobs, and, with the exception of zombies, hostile mobs do not see them. If the player does happen to kill one, they drop nothing, and others will do nothing about it. They can leave buildings to randomly wander outside.

The villagers began the same AI programming as a Pig, although they cannot be led by wheat. Now, starting from Snapshot 12w05a, Villagers gained the ability to utilize doors and therefore use houses. When two of them try to get into one door, the door will only open and close as they try to get in. Villagers would also try to open a door from the side of the house, resulting in the villager jumping repeatedly while opening and closing the door. Since Snapshot 12w06a, villagers will now hide in houses during night or rain and will run away if they see a Zombie, which now attacks the villagers. They will also "socialize" with each other and passive mobs. This involves two villagers simply facing each other.

In Snapshot 12w07a, Villagers will mate depending on available housing. The amount of housing can be supplemented by the player creating enclosed structures with a roof and door. The villagers seem to keep the population equal to half the amount of houses, or more specifically doors available. Each villager will breed only if there are more than double the amount of doors near it than villagers. It is possible to breed villagers by placing them in an area surrounded by doors, or at least with doors nearby and they will breed until their population is equal to half the number of doors. The type of villager that the child is, doesn't seem to depend on what type the parents are; Two regular brown robed villagers can have a child that is any of the occupations. This is unlike how sheep breed. Unlike other breed-able, non-tameable mobs, the parents and child have no interaction. Instead, they will quickly move about the town, entering and leaving houses at will, likely due to the increased speed of being a baby combined with the Villager AI in general. The baby Villagers will also chase each other around the Village to simulate that they are playing tag. Villagers are the second mob in which their heads are sized down to their bodies (the first are tamed cats).

Professions
Each Villager's profession can be identified by its clothing: (Note that all Villagers have brown clothing under their robes/aprons)

History
Villagers were first introduced in Beta 1.9 Pre-release 1. They had "TESTIFICATE" over their heads the same way player names are applied in Multiplayer, which was removed in Beta 1.9 Pre-release 2.

As of 1.1, the original Farmer NPC can be spawned in Creative mode by using Spawn Eggs. The other NPC variations may be available in the future.

In 12w05a, villagers can open and close doors, go inside at night, and can detect villager houses.

In 12w06a, villagers can socialize with each other and passive mobs, are attacked by and run away from zombies, and go inside when it rains.

In 12w07a, villagers will repopulate NPC villages by the number of houses there are, and their children sprint.

Future
It has been confirmed that there will be more villager AI applied in a future update. This has been fully confirmed during the development phases of Minecraft 1.2, when villagers slowly gained knowledge snapshot by snapshot.

Villagers currently have sieges against zombies, but have no means of defense other than running away or hiding in houses. This means that villagers will have some sort of way of defense or weapons soon. Their defenses will probably be included in the next snapshot.

On Feb. 18, 2012, Jon tweeted about his most recent creation: A "SoldierMob" that "fires bullets at enemies". This may be the defense mechanisms that the Villagers will have.

Trivia

 * Since the Villager's introduction, there has been a texture in the game files indicating a standard Villager type due to their filename. However, this role seems to be filled by the Farmer type instead, with no Villager of this type ever spawning.
 * A texture in the main mob directory of Minecraft appears to be the default character texture ("Steve") reoriented to be a Villager texture. As is expected, applying it to the current Villager model produces a very broken look, as seen above.
 * Villager's arms are implied to be jointed, with two parts each to create folded arms. Another likely implication is that the arms are tucked inside the sleeves of the robes (or shirts for blacksmiths and butchers) so that the sleeves touch.
 * It has been proven that Villagers can climb ladders if they are in their path, like other mobs.
 * Due to their peculiar look villagers have been ridiculed by the fanbase, sometimes comparing them to Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants or Bert from Sesame Street. Notch himself agreed they look like "caveman Squidwards".
 * Villagers do not drop Experience Orbs once killed.
 * Before snapshot 12w05a, when villagers gained the ability to detect houses, villagers would often wander away from villages, causing villagers to be seen in odd places.
 * Villagers are tied with the large slime as the second tallest mob in the game, the tallest being the Enderman. They are exactly 2 blocks tall, most mobs are under 2 blocks tall: Including the player. They are the same height as the largest naturally spawning slime and magma cube.