It was a little overshadowed by their release of Scrolls, but Mojang have managed to put out the first pre-release for 1.8.2 of Minecraft, just before the holidays. It isn’t a large update though, just one that gives us some performance tweaks and bug fixes.

The main bug fixes are to three reported issues. Firstly Spectator Mode players were still getting hostile mobs aggroing on them, following them about and trying to attack them; despite being incorporeal and invisible. That should no longer happen now. The second related to explosion forces being directionally biased, pushing harder in some directions than others. The third fixed some physic issues with explosions too, so certain TNT cannons should no longer be able to shoot ridiculously far.

As well as the update including the normal things, Mojang also says that it includes “cookies, milk and of course lots of hugs” and warns us not to open our gifts before Christmas before wishing us all a happy holidays.

I look forward to seeing how Minecraft develops in the new year, especially after Microsoft took ownership of Mojang. It should be interesting at least.

Mojang blog “Minecraft 1.8.2-pre1 – Christmas Gift Edition”: [x]