Now that all the April Fool's Day shenanigans are out of the way, let's get back to business.
4J announced this morning that after about 2 months of development, Title Update 9 will arrive on April 5th. 4J released the complete list of patch notes, but here they are again for your convenience.
- Added 'The End', with new layout, and new Enderdragon behavior.
- Added Climbable Vines.
- Added Fire Charge, Wooden Button, Item Frames, Spawn Eggs, Sandstone Stairs, Spruce Stairs, Birch Stairs, Nether Bricks, Spruce Planks, Birch Planks, Nether Brick Slab, Spruce Slab and Birch Slab.
- Added new music for The End and The Nether from C418
- Made buckets and signs stackable.
- Sheep now re-grow their wool after shearing.
- New gravel texture.
- Can now smelt Netherrack into a Nether Brick in a Furnace.
- Blacksmith buildings in Villages now hold chests with loot of the same type as found in Strongholds.
- Crafting recipe change - Sign recipe gives three Signs.
- Crafting recipe change - Half Slab recipes give six Half Slabs.
- Crafting recipe change - Stone Button now requires one block of stone instead of two.
- Added smoother color transitions between biomes.
- Added beaches to terrain generation.
- Fence Gates can now be opened and closed with Redstone.
- Changed Nether Fortress to make Nether Wart rooms more likely.
- Made Nether Wart spawn randomly wherever Soul Sand is generated in the Nether.
- Nether Wart will now grow in the Overworld.
- Made Dispenser dispense mobs from Spawn Eggs, rather than the egg itself.
- Dispenser will dispense lava/water from a Bucket of Lava/Water.
- Dispenser will shoot Fire Charges.
- Trapdoors can be placed on half slabs and stairs
- Allow players to block with a sword when the 'Can Build And Mine' option is unchecked by the host.
- Moved six of the twelve music disc quests in the Tutorial World
- Changed the Tutorial world to add climbable Vines, and some of the new items, and removed/reduced the items in the Brewing, Farming and Breeding chests.
- Don't show the achievements warning when loading a creative map that has already been saved in creative mode.
- Reduced the volume of the Ghast sound effects.
- Increased the distance jukeboxes can be heard from.
- Improved lighting code performance.
- Improved the loading/saving time.
- Changed the display order in the Minecraft Store to show newest DLC first.
- Added How To Play for The End and Farming Animals
- Added HUD size options for both splitscreen and full screen modes.
- Added Reset Nether option to force regeneration of The Nether. This is helpful for older saves that didn't have a Nether Fortress.
- Added a toggle for Death Messages.
- Added a toggle to hide or display the animated character in the User Interface.
- Allow individual splitscreen users to have their own settings for HUD