Horse Update

The Horse Update is a major update labeled as 1.6.1. Released on 1st July 2013, it adds many new features such as horses, leads, coal blocks, carpets, resource packs and a new launcher.

Development began shortly after 1.5.2 was released. Eighteen development snapshots were released, from to. Several iterations of the new launcher have been released so far during this time period, from 0.1 to 1.2.2. Nearer the end of the snapshot cycle for the 1.6 update, Mojang focused primarily on fixing bugs, rather than adding new features.

The official name for the update - the Horse Update - was only announced a week prior to the 1.6 prerelease on the Minecraft update tumblr (which is viewed in the launcher).

Mojang released the 1.6 pre-release on June 25, 2013. This included an easter egg where mobs named "Dinnerbone" or "Grumm" were flipped upside down.

Notable features
A new Minecraft launcher was implemented in this update, with improved LWJGL code and the ability to auto-update.

This update features the addition of horses, donkeys, and mules: three tamable mobs which can be ridden upon and bred, the first of which comes in a variety of colors.

Horses can be fed with hay bales and other food items, and equipped with a saddle and horse armor to ride and protect them. Donkeys and mules can be equipped with a saddle to ride them with and a chest to store items. Leads can be used to walk or tie up any mob to a fence. Name tags allow any mob to be named with the exclusion of the Ender Dragon, and villagers have to be named as babies or else during multi player. This prevents any named mobs from despawning.

Carpets were added to cover a floor without raising it an extra layer, like snow cover. Coal blocks have also been added and can be used for compact coal storage and provide more fuel than the coal used to create it alone. Hardened Clay was also added, and can be dyed with the 16 available colors to give decorative Stained Clay blocks that do not burn up like wool does.

Criticism
This update, like 1.8 Beta, was quite heavily criticised when it first came out. The most criticised feature was the new zombie mechanics making zombies constantly horde the player and that every few seconds, another batch of zombies would attack them and when the zombies were attacked, more zombies would spawn, making nighttime an endless onslaught of zombies. Baby zombies were also resented due to their speed and the fact they don't burn in daylight or drop anything. Many people considered the new zombies a gamebreaker at first.

Another hated feature was the new hunger system and the fact healing now takes saturation points. This, along with the zombies and the potion nerfs made survival too hard for many inexperienced players. Also, golden apples were made harder to craft, using gold ingots instead of gold nuggets, another heavily resented feature.

Another criticised feature were some of the horse equipment, such as horse armour and name tags, were made uncraftable and had to be found in loot chests only. Whilst some people felt this was a good idea as it encouraged exploration, many hated this as they felt it was too hard to find. In the first few snapshots, there was a seperate saddle for horses which could be crafted. That was soon removed and the old uncraftable saddle was used, making horses considerably hard to tame and ride.

People also criticised the horse spawning and breeding. The fact they only spawn in plains biomes rarely (most plains biomes having no more than 4 individuals, if that) and the fact two golden apples were needed to breed horses and given that golden apples were made harder to craft, people felt horses were too hard to access.

On the other hand, 1.6 introduced very popular features, such as carpets, which had been something the community had been requesting for years, and also horses themselves, another feature that had been requested for years.

Video
Watch the overview video below to learn more about the 1.6 update.