Mojang's small Minecraft team has been busy getting into the festive holiday spirit lately, moving away from their Halloween-themed items and into the aforementioned end-of-year celebrations. Right on schedule, the latest Minecraft 1.4.6 update has arrived in time for Christmas, and it brings with it the inclusion of fireworks, enchantment books and a hefty amount of bug fixes and gameplay alterations. With the Xbox edition of the game trying its best to keep up, Jeb and the crew are certainly giving the console-based team a run for their money.

Read on to find out all the goodies included in the December Minecraft update!

Minecraft 1.4.6 Items

Items The most noticeable change is the inclusion of fireworks, which can be crafted using gunpowder, paper and a firework star. To create a firework star, players must mix gunpowder with a dye of his or her choice to affect the color of the firework. There are 16 dye colors to choose from, which allows for a satisfying color palette for rockets - but the customization doesn't end there. Players can also add an extra ingredient, which changes either the trail or shape of the firework. Diamond causes a trail behind the firework, whilst glowstone dust makes the explosion twinkle.

For shape adjustments, using any mob head will create a creeper shaped explosion. Players can also use Fire Charge, Gold Nuggets and Feathers to alter the shapes, which create larger, star-shaped, and burst explosions, respectively. Gamers can add up to three pieces of gunpowder to the firework itself, which launches it to different heights - obviously, the more gunpowder used, the higher the rocket will go before exploding.

Enchanting Books have also arrived, allowing players to enchant items via the anvil that was added in the prior update. Players can either enchant the book by utilizing their own enchantment table, or alternatively can seek out enchanted books in villages, dungeons and loot chests. It's a great way to ready enchantments before acquiring/building the tools/armor/weapons and it allows players to accurately pick out what enchantment they want for their items. Mojang has also included a new book-specific enchantment called Thorns, which can be applied to any armor item. When attacked, there's a chance that the attacker will have the damage dealt reflected back - not a bad defense mechanism. It won't help against creepers, but most other mobs/players will recoil when automatically struck by the Thorn enchantment.

Netherbrick slabs are finally on the menu, just like any other regular building block. Placing three netherbrick blocks in a row on the crafting menu allows for the creation of the slab, allowing more intricate building designs made from the material. For those keeping score, you can also convert Netherbrick blocks into fences and stairs as well.

Minecraft 1.4.6 Updates

Enchantments & Gameplay Updates The enchantments for Silk Touch and Efficiency can now also be applied to Shears, meaning cobwebs can be harvested in Survival mode for the first time. Sharpness, Bane of Anthropod and Smite can now be applied to axes as well. Some of the previously existing enchantments have now had their affects altered, including Fire Protection extinguishing fire at a faster rate and Blast Protection now reducing explosion recoil.

Without further ado, here's the list of the rest of the gameplay updates for Minecraft 1.4.6:

  • While on Fancy Graphics mode, items dropped in-game will now have 3D features, rather than the 2D floating system everyone is accustomed to.
  • Optional Touch-Screen mechanic introduced
  • When switching items, the name of the item is shown briefly above the items toolbar
  • Pressing CTRL while dropping items will now drop the entire stack, making it easy to give item stacks to other players or get rid of items quickly.
  • Arrows will now render from further away, and a new player hit sound has been included.
  • Right-clicking while sneaking now uses the held item, as opposed to using the selected block in front of the player (be wary with lava!)
Minecraft 1.4.6 Bug Fixes

The Bug Fixes

  • Fixed mouse wrongly positioned in fullscreen
  • Fixed mobs walking slowly when you hit them
  • Fixed server/client desync of chests
  • Fixed flame effect on arrows when fired into a pressure plate and player immediately engages flight mode
  • Fixed zombies which sometimes stop attacking
  • Fixed the inability to remove partial XP bars from the "xp -1L" command when you're between level 0 and 1
  • Fixed arrows shot at Endermen disappearing
  • Fixed a bug with custom mob spawners not spawning different types of entities correctly
  • Fixed animals appearing to walk through fences in SP
  • Fixed some items with multi-layer textures rendering both layers separately when on the ground
  • Fixed tools differing only in damage not being able to be swapped in the inventory
  • Fixed some Z-Fighting with the beacon
  • Fixed some graphical issues in the trading GUI
  • Fixed /say not showing the text in the original purple color
  • Fixed placing double slabs ignoring damage value
  • Fixed minecarts being unable to travel through Nether portals
  • Fixed lightning not flashing
  • Fixed the Nether and the End generating random client-side blocks in MP
  • Fixed FallingSand spawners failing to save properly and causing crashes
  • Fixed the blocks in lowest layer of the map not being recognized by beacons
  • Fixed enchantments not showing in Item Frames, but fixed only in fancy graphics mode.
  • Fixed 1-9 clicking an item out of a furnace not giving XP
  • Fixed mobs reverting farmland to dirt when mob griefing gamerule is set to false
  • Fixed setting an Enderman on fire with lava or flint-and-steelnot making it teleport away
  • Fixed animals on fire not fleeing
  • Fixed boats being placed in the wrong direction
  • Fixed Endermen not being able to dodge flaming arrows
  • Fixed the game auto-selecting the first item on the toolbar when entering the Nether
  • Fixed leaves having the incorrect tooltip
  • Fixed drowning in creative mode
  • Fixed the /enchant command not enchanting with ID 0 (Protection)
  • Fixed not hearing the XP sound every 5 levels
  • Fixed minecarts and falling entities jittering
  • Fixed passive mob spawn eggs not being consumed
  • Fixed Endermen not opening their mouths when being attacked by other mobs
  • Fixed F3+B hitboxes rendering invisibility potions
  • Fixed the Wither sometimes destroying its own star

Without a doubt, the holiday update will be pleasing for those looking to utilize the new anvil item and celebrate the holidays. It takes a fair amount of effort to produce fireworks, so it wouldn't be surprising to see them used mainly in Creative Mode as opposed to Survival.

What do you think about the 1.4.6 update, Ranters? Are there any changes you didn't like - or anything you still want them to include?

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Source: Minecraft Wiki