Java Edition 1.11

1.11, the first release of the Exploration Update, was a major update to Minecraft released on November 14, 2016. This update made large changes to entity IDs, and added illagers (vindicators and evokers), vexes, totems of undying, exploration maps, observers, shulker boxes, woodland mansions and llamas.

Blocks

 * Observers
 * Ported from the Pocket and Windows 10 Editions.
 * May have slight behavior differences due to how redstone works in the Java edition compared to Pocket and Windows 10 Edition.
 * Outputs a redstone signal when it detects a block update.
 * Normal BUDs still remain.




 * Shulker Boxes
 * Crafted in a crafting table as a single column, with a chest in the middle of the row and a shulker shell both above and below the chest.
 * Work similar to a chest, but keeps its content when broken.
 * If it has any content inside, it will drop itself in Creative mode as well.
 * Cannot be placed inside another shulker box.
 * When hovered over in the inventory, it will show up to 5 slots of its content.
 * Breaks when being pushed by a piston.
 * Use the same opening and closing animations as the Shulker.
 * Can be placed on different sides of a block to open in different directions.
 * When opening, its hitbox changes from 1 block to 1.5 blocks in its opening direction.
 * Because of this, it will not open if there is a block of any kind within the closest half-block area in its opening direction.
 * Can be dyed in any of the available dye colors.
 * Dyed Shulker Boxes have a slightly darker bottom part than the normal one.
 * Dispensers will place the block on the ground.
 * Can be mined with anything, but is mined faster with a pickaxe.

Items

 * Spawn eggs
 * Eggs that were removed in Java Edition 1.10-pre2 are re-added, except the cat spawn egg, including:
 * Wither skeleton
 * Mule
 * Skeleton horse
 * Zombie horse
 * Donkey
 * Elder guardian
 * Stray
 * Husk
 * 5 new spawn eggs
 * Llama
 * Evoker
 * Vex
 * Vindicator
 * Zombie villager


 * Shulker shells
 * Has a 50% chance of being dropped by a shulker upon death.
 * Crafted together with a chest in a column to make shulker boxes.


 * Totems of undying
 * Evokers will always drop one of these upon death.
 * Holding it in either hand will resurrect the player upon taking lethal damage.
 * Gives the player the Absorption and Regeneration effects when activated.
 * Does not prevent death by or the Void.
 * Has an animation when activated, which uses the item's texture and model.


 * Explorer maps
 * Can only be obtained from cartographer villagers.
 * Used to locate ocean monuments and the new woodland mansions.
 * Ocean explorer maps are slightly blue, while woodland explorer maps are slightly brown.
 * Works like a map, but shows the outlines of land and a single structure icon.
 * Fills in the map with blocks once the player starts exploring the area shown.
 * When resized, it will still show the structure icon, but will lose the outlines.
 * When outside the area on the map, the player icon will be smaller the further away the player is.
 * When 1024 blocks away from the structure, the dot will go from a small icon to a bigger one.

Mobs

 * Illagers
 * Being relatives to the villagers, they look similar but have pale gray skin and wear dark clothes.
 * Two kinds of Illagers are introduced: evokers and vindicators.


 * Vindicators
 * Separate their arms when aggravated, and holds an iron axe in their main hand.
 * Their axe is one of their, this means their attack disables shields.
 * Hostile towards players and villagers.
 * Have a byte tag  which is false by default; if set to true, they will attack any nearby mobs, with the exception of other Illagers.
 * Spawn in the woodland mansions upon generation. They will not respawn.
 * May drop emeralds and an iron axe upon death.


 * Evokers
 * Added as an end-game challenge, or mini-boss.
 * Will always drop a totem of undying upon death. May drop emeralds too.
 * In battle, they will summon vexes and fangs to attack.
 * Raise their arms when casting a spell.
 * Fangs always deal damage, ignoring armor.
 * Aggressive towards the player and villagers.
 * Spawn in the two upper floors of woodland mansions upon generation. They will not respawn.
 * Will change any blue colored sheep in a radius of 16 blocks into red.


 * Vexes
 * Spawn only when summoned by an evoker.
 * Appear similar to ghosts, in that they are small, pale, flying mobs that can phase through blocks.
 * Show red marks when about to attack.
 * Attack players and villagers.
 * Hold an iron sword in their main hand.


 * Llamas
 * Spawn in extreme hills.
 * Drop leather.
 * Has multiple skins, like cats and horses.
 * Attack by spitting.
 * If the player hits them, they will spit at the player once, dealing damage.
 * If not in a caravan group, they are always aggressive toward wolves.
 * Can be equipped with a carpet for decoration and a chest for storage.
 * Differently colored carpets have different textures when placed on llamas.
 * The amount of storage slots available depends on the strength of the llama.
 * If the player puts a leash on one, up to 10 llamas will be attracted and try to form a caravan.
 * Caravan groups are passive to all mobs.
 * Tamed llamas can be bred with hay bales.

Non-mob entities

 * Evocation fangs
 * Summoned by evokers during their Fang Attack.
 * Fangs in warmup still have a visible debug hitbox.
 * Damages deals to mobs that were in place.
 * Naturally spawned fangs do not harm illagers.
 * But player-spawned ones do.

World generation

 * Return portals
 * Look like end gateways, but teleport the player to the main island's spawn platform.
 * Generate randomly throughout the End near end cities.


 * Woodland mansions
 * Generate in roofed forest biomes.
 * Home to the illagers.
 * Have three floors, where the bottom two are larger and the third is smaller.
 * Use procedural generation and structure blocks for random layouts.
 * Because of this, some rooms may be completely surrounded by walls and have no entrance.
 * Consist mostly of cobblestone and wood blocks.
 * Can be located with a woodland explorer maps.

Gameplay

 * Gamerules
 * Determines whether the weather will change.
 * Defaults to true.
 * Defaults to 24
 * If one entity tries to push more than specified number of entities, it starts to suffocate.
 * Gets damaged 3 hearts by tick, passes though armor.
 * The death message is " squished too much".
 * Setting to 0 disables the rule.
 * Affects all entities.
 * Setting to 0 disables the rule.
 * Affects all entities.


 * Curse enchantments
 * Enchantments with negative effects.
 * Two curses added: the Curse of Binding (enchantment ID 10) and the Curse of Vanishing (enchantment ID 71).
 * Curse of Binding will bind the item to the player, making the player unable to drop it or take it off if it is an armor item, although it will drop when the player dies.
 * Players in Creative mode are unaffected by this curse.
 * Curse of Vanishing will make the item disappear if the player dies.  will prevent this.
 * Cursed tools, armor and books can be found as loot in some generated structures.

Command format

 * Syntax:
 * Accepts: EndCity, Fortress, Mansion, Mineshaft, Monument, Stronghold, Temple and Village.
 * Desert temples, Jungle temples, Witch huts and Igloos all go under the Temple category.
 * Pushes coordinates for the closest structure of given type in the chat for the player who executed the command.
 * Returns the message "Located [Structure] at [x] [y] [z]".
 * Will display the Y coordinates as "(y?)" for some structures
 * If a structure is not located nearby (i.e. in a different dimension), it will respond with "Unable to locate any [StructureType] feature"
 * If a structure is not located nearby (i.e. in a different dimension), it will respond with "Unable to locate any [StructureType] feature"

General

 * Splashes
 * "Javalicious edition"
 * "Should not be played while driving"
 * "You're going too fast!"


 * Internationalization
 * New strings within the game were made available for internationalization:
 * World selection error messages.
 * Customized superflat preset names.
 * Spectator-mode-specific options and messages.
 * In the Options menu: the words "chunks" and "fps"
 * In item tooltips: the words "Color: ", "NBT: " and "Durability: "
 * Pressing displays text associated with other  actions.
 * Text associated with downloading resource packs from servers.
 * command output


 * Particles
 * Used when llamas spit.
 * Used when llamas spit.


 * Used when the Totem of Undying is activated.
 * Used when the Totem of Undying is activated.


 * NBT tags
 * New display tag entry for items:  for translation strings
 * integer tag for potions and potion arrows to overwrite/set the color
 * integer tag for filled maps to overwrite/set the color of the marks in the item texture

Blocks

 * Blocks with custom names, including banners, hoppers, chests, furnaces, enchanting tables, dispensers, droppers, brewing stands, and beacons, will retain their custom name when the block is dropped as an item, and when the item is placed again
 * Use the  tag


 * Anvils
 * Added sound when dropped anvils break.


 * Banners
 * Now require a dye when applying a pattern that uses a non-dye item, such as a creeper head or enchanted golden apple.
 * Previously the lack of a dye would have applied the black variant of the pattern.


 * Beds
 * If the player clicks on the bed, but is not right beside it, it now shows the message: "You may not rest now, the bed is too far away".
 * Previously the player would get no message, but would be unable to sleep.


 * Cauldrons
 * Added sound when filling and emptying cauldrons with buckets and bottles.
 * Washing dyed leather armor and dyed banners now remove 1 water level from the cauldron.
 * Using a water bottle now refills 1 water level to a cauldron.


 * Dispensers
 * Dispensers facing upwards and containing spawn eggs now spawn mobs properly on top of the dispenser.
 * Now dispenses a boat facing the same way as the dispenser, instead of towards the dispenser.


 * End gateway portal blocks
 * Now use a magenta-colored beam when teleporting entities, rather than yellow.
 * This color matches the beam that occurs when the block first generates


 * Flowers
 * Their hitbox now corresponds to their exact visual location on the block (as opposed to always placed in the middle of the block).


 * Flower pots
 * Can now remove the potted plant from the pot, by pressing.


 * Leaves
 * Particles emitted from leaves now use the corresponding color according to the biome.


 * Rails
 * All rail types' hitbox heights are decreased from a full block to a half block


 * Trapdoors
 * Trapdoors that are placed right next to redstone sources now automatically update to an open state.

Items

 * Cobblestone walls and mossy cobblestone walls
 * Are now in the Decoration Blocks tab in the Creative inventory rather than the Building Blocks tab.


 * Durability Bar
 * The colors of the durability bar, which is displayed on damaged items in the hotbar and inventories, have been changed.
 * The color is now bright during the entire length of the bar, when previously it would fade through a set of not so bright oranges and yellows, it will now fade through clear yellow and orange.
 * Also the background of the durability bar is now completely black, where it used to be transparent.


 * Elytra
 * Visible when equipped on skeletons, zombies and armor stands.
 * Now have their own sound when equipped.


 * Farmland
 * Using will give the player farmland itself instead of dirt.


 * Fishing rods
 * Fishing rods will now cast out or reel in when right clicking on fences.


 * Maps
 * Now shows the land properly when used in the End.
 * Item texture's "markers" can now be colored by  tag.
 * Used for Explorer Maps


 * Potions
 * Potions that have missing or invalid potion-effect tags now default to the uncraftable potion, which now has no glint, and is now magenta in color.
 * This also applies to lingering potions, splash potions and tipped arrows.
 * Due to the water bottle without tags being changed to uncraftable potion, the brewing icon is also changed to uncraftable potion in the creative inventory.


 * Potions and tipped arrows
 * Item texture's color can now be custom colored by  tag.


 * Shields
 * Will now keep enchantment level and durability when crafted with banners.


 * Spawn eggs
 * Are now sorted alphabetically in the creative inventory.


 * Stacks
 * There is no longer an item stack of 0 when using the drag function to craft items.

Mobs

 * Blazes
 * Will take damage when hit by a splash water bottle.


 * Chickens
 * Now have a neck texture.


 * Creepers
 * If a creeper is inflicted with a potion effect, its explosion will cause a lingering effect of the potion.


 * Ender dragons
 * Custom named ender dragons now show their name in their boss health bar.
 * Now shows their hitboxes when hitboxes are shown using.


 * Endermen
 * Will take damage when hit by a splash water bottle.


 * Guardians and elder guardians
 * Their common drop of fish will now be cooked fish if they die while on fire.
 * Their rare drops from player kills, which match fishing loot and are sometimes fish, are unaffected.
 * Elder guardians now drop a wet sponge rather than a dry sponge.


 * Horses
 * Skeleton and zombie horses:
 * Their bone and rotten flesh drops (respectively) now yield 0–2, and are now affected by Looting.
 * Skeleton trap horses:
 * The chance of spawning with a thunderstorm lightning strike is reduced to $1/5$ of what it was.


 * Humans
 * The Savegame ID for Humans were removed.


 * Husks
 * Now try to avoid water.


 * Saddled pigs
 * Are now able to be renamed by name tags.


 * Rabbits
 * Their raw rabbit drop is now affected by the Looting enchantment.


 * Shulkers
 * Now drops 0-1 shulker shells.
 * Can be spawned in with different colors using the  data tag.
 * Colored shulkers have a darker bottom part, making them slightly different from normal Shulkers.
 * Can now be spawned on sides and bottoms of blocks by spawn eggs


 * Snow golems
 * Now, when their pumpkin is sheared from their head, that is saved with the game (previously it was just an in-memory visual effect).


 * Villagers
 * All villagers:
 * Can now be named by name tags.
 * Farmer villagers:
 * Now sell 5–7 apples, where before they sold 5
 * Now sell 6–10 cookies, where before they sold 6
 * Cartographer was added as a new Librarian career.
 * Trading with a Cartographer is the only way to obtain the new explorer maps.
 * Green-robed villagers (aka Nitwit):
 * Re-added this entity as.
 * Spawns naturally in villages.
 * No trades.


 * Withers
 * Custom named withers now show their name in their boss health bar.


 * Wither Skeletons
 * Now have their own sounds.


 * Zombie villagers
 * Now have their own sounds.
 * Green-robed zombie villagers
 * Re-added this entity as.
 * Spawn naturally anywhere zombie villager spawn.

Non-mob entities

 * Armor stands
 * Added sound when broken in creative mode.


 * Arrows
 * Now have a  tag which determines whether the arrow will deal critical hit damage.

World generation

 * Desert village wells
 * The bottom most part of the well is now made of sandstone instead of cobblestone.

Gameplay

 * Chat
 * Messages can now be 256 characters long instead of 100.
 * Some warnings now appear above the hotbar instead in the chat, like "Press [key] to dismount" had.
 * "You can only sleep at night"
 * "You may not rest now, there are monsters nearby"
 * "This bed is occupied"
 * "Height limit for building is 256 blocks"
 * "Unable to open. Loot not generated yet."
 * "You may not rest now, the bed is too far away"


 * Exhaustion levels


 * Fishing
 * Fishing has received a major overhaul.
 * Ink sacs are now caught in stacks of 10 with a weight of 1, rather than in stacks of 1 with a weight of 10.


 * Fuel
 * More things will burn in the furnace
 * 1 Wool smelts 0.5 items.
 * 1 Carpet smelts 0. 3 items.
 * 1 Ladder smelts 1.5 items.
 * 1 Wooden Button smelts 0.5 items.
 * 1 Bow smelts 1.5 items.
 * 1 Fishing rod smelts 1.5 items.
 * 1 Sign smelts 1 item.
 * 1 Bowl smelts 0.5 items.
 * 1 Wooden door smelts 1 item.
 * 1 Boat smelts 2 items.


 * Shields
 * Now block 100%, as opposed to 66. 6 %, of the damage dealt in melee combat.
 * Zombies without any weapons will not deal any damage to the player, nor damage the shields durability.
 * Creeper explosions deal 0 damage to the player.
 * Wither skeletons will not inflict the wither effect when hit by them.
 * Burning zombies will not set the player on fire.
 * Mobs with axes will now disable the shield if they attack a blocking player.


 * Sneaking
 * Now prevents drops from heights of $5/8$ of a block or greater; previously, it was 1 full block or greater.


 * Subtitles
 * Some of elder guardians' and zombie villagers' subtitles are now distinct from the subtitles for guardians and zombies.


 * Transportation
 * Now shows the player's hunger bar when riding a minecart or a boat.

Command format

 * Now ignores item-specific stacking restrictions.
 * Now ignores item-specific stacking restrictions.


 * Now can display text in the action bar position.
 * Now can display text in the action bar position.


 * Block states
 * Block states can now be used in the, , and  commands.
 * Examples:
 * instead of
 * instead of
 * instead of


 * Target selectors
 * Target selectors specifying coordinates and radius must now be given explicitly (i.e., [1,2,3,4] no longer substitutes for [x=1,y=2,z=3,r=4]).

General

 * Tab-completion results are now sorted alphabetically
 * Switched the Done and Reset Keys buttons on the controls screen for consistency


 * Resource packs
 * The required pack version number was changed to "3" in.
 * Version 3 resource packs have to use lowercase filenames for everything.


 * Options
 * Changed the title and description of "Snooper Settings"
 * Brings it into line with the new privacy policy
 * Title is now "Feed us data!" instead of "Machine Specs Collection"
 * Description is now "We always want to improve Minecraft and, to help us do that, we'd like to collect some information. This lets us know what hardware to support and where the big problems are. It also gives us a sense of the size of our active player base, so we know if we're doing a good job. You can view all the information we collect below. If you want to opt out then you can simply toggle it off!"


 * Entity IDs, block entity IDs, block IDs and item IDs
 * Now are no longer case sensitive.
 * Autocomplete will put in lowercase letters.


 * Entity and block entity IDs
 * Use underscores to separate words, rather than using single words in mixed case.
 * Optionally, a  namespace prefix can be used, just like block and item IDs. However, it is not optional for EntityTags and spawners.
 * There are still old entity IDs in the language files (example:  instead of   for the magma cube) and the new mobs in 1.11 have their ID with the old type (no underscores, capital letters for the beginning of the words. example:   instead of   for the vindicator.)
 * The following names have changed:


 * Horse was split into entity IDs,  ,  ,   and   for their respective types.
 * Skeleton was split into entity IDs,   and.
 * Zombie was split into entity IDs,   and.
 * Guardian was split into entity IDs  and.
 * Unused savegame IDs  and   were removed.


 * NBT tags
 * For all horses,,   and   tags are removed.
 * and  tags now apply only to   and.
 * and  tags now apply only to.
 * tag is removed from  and.
 * tag is removed from all zombie types.
 * and  tags now apply only to.
 * tag is removed from all skeleton types.
 * byte tag is added to.
 * For ghast fireballs, blaze fireballs, fire charges, dragon fireballs and wither skulls:
 * ,,  ,   and   tags were removed,
 * and the  tag is no longer used for anything, but still saved/read.


 * Loot tables
 * Donkey, mule, husk and zombie villager now each draw from their own loot tables, rather than drawing from the horse and zombie loot tables, respectively.
 * Villagers and ender dragons are now able to draw from their own loot tables.

Fixes

 * Other fixes
 * More stable handling of invalid items
 * Causes there to be less duplication bugs.

Video
Video made by slicedlime: