Now available on a multitude of platforms, the latest being PlayStation 3, Mojang and 4J are keeping the world of Minecraft going with expansions, patches, and updates, and the next update, Title Update 14, is said to be on the way.
Responding to a fan's question, a new tweet from 4J's official Twitter account had the update as in development. According to the tweet, the update will "be based on the Java 1.3.1 version, with a few things brought forward from later versions."
That being said, let's take a look at the patch list for 1.3.1 (provided courtesy of the Minecraft Wiki on gamepedia) to see what sort of changes can be expected. Keep in mind, none of these changes have been confirmed:
GAMEPLAY
* Added Adventure mode
* Added trading - Using emerald as currency, villagers will, depending on profession, offer different trades to players.
* Improved Creative mode inventory
* Improved experience collection
* Improved enchanting
* Added writing in books
* Improved Multiplayer
* Improved the Pick Block key
WORLD GENERATION
* Made sub-biome type mountains like Desert Hills or Ice Mountains taller
* Made cocoa beans appear on some small jungle trees
* Added optional starting chest on non-hardcore worlds
* Added large biomes world type, increasing biome sizes immensely[5]
* Added desert-specific villages
* Added Desert Temples
* Added Jungle Temples
* Added Emerald Ore
BLOCKS & ITEMS
* Emerald Ore - Drops Emerald.
* Emerald - Is used to trade with villagers
* Block of Emerald - Crafted by putting 9 emeralds on a crafting table.
* Ender Chest - Crafted by surrounding an eye of ender with 8 pieces of obsidian, stores each player's contents across dimensions and all Ender Chests. Contents are preserved even if all Ender Chests are destroyed, explosion-resistant, emits light and purple particles.
* Tripwire Hook - Breaking the string triggers a redstone signal, cutting it using shears doesn't. Entities like boats, mobs, arrows or players touching the string trigger a redstone signal, string can be up to 40 blocks long.
* String - Can now be placed.
* Wood - Can now be placed in 3 different directions. Placement works like similar to piston placement.
* Furnaces - Can be fueled by wooden tools now. Return an empty bucket when using lava buckets as fuel now.
* Ice - Instead of melting in the nether, it now disappears. Can be obtained using Silk Touch-enchanted gear now.
* Glass Panes - Can be obtained using Silk Touch-enchanted gear now.[13]
* Nether Portal - Leaks into the Overworld now: Depending on difficulty, zombie pigmen rarely spawn in them.
* Slabs - Added all wood types.
* Wooden slabs crafted after the update act like wood.
* Stairs - Added Sandstone Stairs. Added wooden stairs for all kinds of wood, Adjusted hitbox.
* Slabs and stairs - Will now be placed upside-down when placed on the upper half of a block's side.
* Leaves - Water slowly drips through them when it's raining.
* Cauldrons - Slowly fill up when it's raining.
* Dispensers - Minecarts & boats will now be placed if there's rails/water in place. Instead of dispensing buckets, dispensers will now suck in or place water or lava in front of them.
* Gravel - Changed texture
* Levers - Can be placed on the underside of blocks.
* Wooden Pressure Plates - Can be triggered by arrows.
* Pistons - Now take 2 redstone ticks (4 game ticks) seconds to expand.
* TNT - Depending on difficulty, does different amounts of damage now:
* Cocoa Beans - Retextured item. Can be planted & grown on jungle wood now. Can be grown instantly using bone meal.
* Cookies - Give a full hunger point now.
* Nether Warts - Can now be grown in the Overworld and in the End.
* Written Book - Can only be obtained by signing a Book and Quill. Can be sold to villagers.
* Empty buckets - Stack up to 16 now. Stacked buckets work just like stacked glass bottles do.
* Signs - Stack up to 16 now. Crafting now gives 3 signs instead of 1.
* Golden Apple - Has two crafting recipes now, the new one replacing gold nuggets with gold blocks. Second tier gives Regeneration IV, Resistance and Fire resistance effects.
* Monster Spawners - Added NBT tags to further customize spawned mobs. Only changeable using map editors or mods.
* Boats - Are not broken by lilypads anymore, instead they run straight through the lilypad now, breaking and sometimes dropping it.
* Minecarts - When on rails, they can be accelerated a bit while sitting in them. When exiting, players will be moved from the minecart.
MOBS
* Pigs - Drop 1-3 porkchops instead of 0-2.
* Slimes - Reduced spawn rate in superflat maps.
* Silverfish - When suffering from poison potions, they will now spawn more silverfish from nearby silverfish blocks more often.
* Creepers - Increased knockback effect. Depending on difficulty, they do more damage now:
* Creepers & spiders - Become aggressive towards the last mob or player that hit them
* Skeletons, Creepers & zombies - Become neutral against players again a few seconds after being hit in Creative.
While nothing's been confirmed, you can expect any combination, if not all of the changes above. At least in theory, anyway. We'll keep you posted if 4J offers a release date, and/or an official patch list. Meanwhile, another tweet let us know that the studio has completed testing and has released the Patch List for Patch 1.03 for the PS3 version of Minecraft. The team shared the list over at the Minecraft Forums, but you can check it out below:
* Fix for issue in multiplayer/splitscreen which could cause save file corruption.
* Fix for memory issue causing random game freezes and exits to XMB.
* Fix for being unable to join games at times ("The host has exited the game" message incorrectly being displayed).
* Fix for splitscreen crash on adding a player when language is Russian.
* Fix for issue which can prevent leaderboard updates and some trophy awards.
* Fix for issue causing "No DLC offers available" message when converting trial to full version.
* Fix for game render glitch when a new streaming music track starts up.
* Fix for a lighting issue on a network client.
* Fix for the block damage decal being incorrectly offset
* Fix for selected item text not fading off screen if a menu is opened when it's visible.
* Fix for "Where are we now" music disc
* Fix for issue with Ghasts firing at certain angles
* A few rendering performance improvements
The patch is expected sometime next week.