Notch Releases MineCraft "Patch"

In what will doubtless be a hugely controversial move, independant game developer Alexej "Notch" Persson has released what he's calling a "patch" for MineCraft. Players of MineCraft the world over will find that the next time they start their copy of MineCraft, the game will connect to the internet and download various changes that Notch has decided on. The version MineCraft that we all used to play will be lost, forever.

You can read Notch's full list of "improvements" that the patch will add beneath the jump, including a new texture pack selector that will supposedly allow us to swap between textures packs with ease.

I'm not sure I can get behind this idea at all. All hail King Notch, changing our game whenever he pleases. These are dark times, friends.

General fixes:
* players and mobs in lava or fire no longer spam sound effects
* getting hit with a higher damage while recovering from a smaller one now works as intended
* lava flows further in the Nether
* zombie pigs eventually forgives
* added support for custom skin packs
* fixed duplicate buttons when resizing screens
* zombie pigs and ghasts no longer get hurt by fire or lava
* fixed volume sliders now saving properly

Multiplayer fixes:
* hellworld=true no longer overwrites old save chunks. Player positions will still break if you switch it on a running server, though
* boats are now visible to other players
* minecarts move nicer
* fishing kinda sorta works, but needs more work
* sheep and cows look like sheep and cows now
* buckets work now
* fixed stairs being really difficult to destroy
* increased the timeout before “Took too long to log in”
* made it possible to ride carts and boats
* added (after lots of work) the ability to steer server-side boats
* added “no-animals” setting. if true, animals will immediately vanish
* added support for more animation settings. Currently it’s just the “riding” animation, but the same system will be used for sneaking

Farewell, MineCraft 1.2.1. You were a good friend.