1.12, the first release of the World of Color Update,^[1] is a major update to Minecraft (Java Edition) released on June 7, 2017. This update introduced a more vibrant color palette, a new crafting system, hints for beginners, glazed terracotta, concrete, colored beds, illusioners, and parrots. It also replaced achievements with a customizable and more powerful system of advancements, and introduced a new system for working with collections of commands, called functions.

Additions

Blocks

Colored beds

• Added 15 new beds, in addition to the existing red bed.
• Crafted using three of the respective wool colors along with three of any wood planks.

Concrete

• Comes in the 16 traditional dye colors.
• Created when concrete powder comes into contact with still or flowing water.

Concrete powder

• Comes in the 16 traditional dye colors.
• Gravity affected (like sand and gravel).
• When it touches water, it turns into a concrete block.
• Craftable using 4 sand, 4 gravel and one of any dye to get 8 concrete powder blocks. The recipe is shapeless.

Glazed terracotta

• Comes in the 16 traditional dye colors.
• Smelt any colored terracotta in a furnace to obtain the glazed terracotta of that color (not for regular terracotta).
• Can be placed in 4 directions: north, south, west, and east.
  • When placed down while facing the right directions, a repeating pattern can be created. For example, the white terracotta will create the pattern of a sun when 4 are placed down correctly.
• Will not "stick" to slime blocks if attached to the side, top or bottom, but will if attached to the front or back.

Items

Knowledge books

• A green-colored book.
• Currently obtainable only with the /give @p knowledge_book command.
• A Knowledge Book with a Recipes NBT tag, which contains a list of item IDs, will be consumed and unlock the specified items' recipes for any player that uses it.
  • Especially useful when /gamerule doLimitedCrafting is set to true.

Spawn eggs

• Parrot (new mob): Green with red dots.

Mobs

Illusioners

• New illager.
• Affects players with Blindness for 20 seconds then shoots with a bow.
  • Its blindness spell will only be cast if the regional difficulty is greater than 2.
• Summons duplicates of itself.
  • All duplicates will show shooting animation, but only the real one can be hit and shoots the arrow.
  • The original turns invisible.
• Does not currently have a spawn egg, so can only be summoned with /summon minecraft:illusioner.
• Targets both the player and villagers.
• Unused and present only in Java Edition.

Parrots

• Fly around, but sit when "tired".
• Tamed with seeds.
• If fed cookies, the parrot dies.
  • Poison particle effects are emitted, but they are not actually killed by poison.
  • If a player has tamed a parrot and then fed it cookies, it will display the message "Parrot was slain by <player>".
• Follow and crowd around nearby mobs.
• Imitates sounds of hostile mobs.
• Parrots dance if playing music on a nearby jukebox.
• Right-click action available:
  • Right-click on a tamed parrot tells it to sit down.
• Walking over/through/near a tamed parrot while crouching will cause it to sit on the player's shoulders.
  • Will let go if the player jumps.
  • Can fly with players during elytra flight.
• Have 6 health.
• Come in red, blue, green, cyan and gray.

Gameplay

Gamerules

• announceAdvancements
  • Defaults to true.
  • Toggles announcing of advancements, replacing the old announce-player-achievements server.properties entry.
    • If announce-player-achievements is set, the gamerule is automatically updated and announce-player-achievements is removed.
• doLimitedCrafting
  • Off by default.
  • Enabling will only allow players to craft recipes they have unlocked.
• gameLoopFunction
  • A function to be executed once per tick.
• maxCommandChainLength
  • The default is 65536.
  • Determines the number at which the chain command block acts as a "chain".

Command format

• @s
  • Targets the executing entity, e.g: /execute @e[type=villager] ~ ~ ~ say @s.
• /advancement <grant|revoke|test> <player> <advancement> [criterion]
  • Can grant, test or revoke advancements, and particular advancement criteria, for a given player.
  • There are five modifiers to the command: "everything", "from", "until", "through", "only".
    • "everything" - all advancements, no specification required (same as "*")
    • "from" - this advancement, its children, and their children, etc.
    • "until" - this advancement, its parent, and its parent, etc.
    • "through" - both of the above
    • "only" - this advancement, and nothing else
  • Examples:
    • /advancement grant dinnerbone until story/elytra
    • /advancement revoke dinnerbone everything
• /function namespace:file
  • Runs a function once through the entity or command block which ran the function command.
    • Added new arguments:
      • if <selector> - runs the function only if the specified selector is found.
      • unless <selector> - runs the function except when the specified selector is found.
• /recipe <give|take> [player] <name|*>
  • Can unlock, or lock, the given recipes for the given player.
  • If * is specified, it will lock or unlock all recipes for the player.
• /reload
  • Command to reload advancements and loot tables from disk.
  • This command is available to all opped players in single player and to all level 4 operators on a multiplayer server.
  • Cannot be run from a command block.

General

Advancements

• Replaces achievements.
• Can be customized via JSON files.
• Tab-based UI.
  • 5 tabs (more supported):
    • Minecraft: The heart and story of the game.
    • Adventure: Adventure, exploration, and combat.
    • Nether: Bring summer clothes.
    • The End: Or the beginning?
    • Husbandry: The world is full of friends and food.
  • Data-driven UI, including positioning and layout.
• Supports rewards in the form of recipes, loot, experience and functions.
  • The only default advancements with a reward are the default "challenge" advancements, which grant experience.
• Pop-up "toast" notification for when players advance.
  • New sliding effect.
  • Comes in two different colors - yellow for normal advancements, and pink for "challenge" advancements.
• A number display tracks progress while completing advancements with multiple requirements.

Controls

• Added keybinding options for Creative toolbar saving.
• Added new keybinding for opening advancements (default "L").

Creative

• Added "Saved Toolbars" tab.
  • Save toolbars in Creative Mode with C+1-9 and load them with X+1-9.
  • Can save up to 9 toolbars.
  • If the player saves an empty toolbar, it will clear the bookmarked toolbar and put back the 'informational paper' in the respective slot.

Functions

• Added new function system, which are text files with the file extension .mcfunction in namespace:path/to/function/file.
  • For example, running /function custom:example/test will refer to the function located at WORLDNAME/data/functions/custom/example/test.mcfunction.
• Functions are a list of commands, one line per command (without a forward slash), with # comment support.

JSON format

• Added 'group' to recipe json format, to clump similar recipes together.
• Added new 'keybind' text component, to refer to the player's keybindings.

Menu screen

• Added the ability to see credits by clicking the copyright text.

Narrator

• CTRL+B toggles a text-to-speech engine that automatically reads player chat messages, including the name.
  • Option to toggle narrator between: "off", "chat & system", "chat only", and "system messages only".
• Shows a notification for toggling.
• The Narrator will not read commands or command outputs, nor will it read messages produced with /me.
• It displays a message whenever the Narrator isn't available.
  • Uses the "toast" notification system.

NBT tags

•  LastExecution
  • Stores the tick a chain command block was last executed in.
•  LoveCauseLeast and  LoveCauseMost for breedable entities
  • Together these record the UUID of the entity that caused a given animal to breed.
•  recipeBook
  • A compound tag containing a list of recipes, formatted as JSON, that the player has seen, as well as recipe book information.
  •  isFilteringCraftable
    • Becomes 1 if the player has enabled the "Show Craftable" feature in the recipe book.
  •  isGuiOpen
    • Checks if the player has left the GUI open.
    •  unlocked
  •  recipes
    • Contains information about all recipes the player has seen.
    •  displayed
      • Checks if the player has tried out the recipe in the recipe book before (by clicking it/viewing it).
  •  toBeDisplayed
    • Within are recipe names that the player has unlocked but not viewed in the crafting helper yet.
    • Used for remembering to play the animation for new recipes.
•  Recipes
  • A list of crafting recipes to unlock for the player that right-clicks while holding a knowledge book.
  • If this is not specified, the knowledge book will not be consumed.
•  enteredNetherPosition
  • A compound tag containing the X, Y, and Z coordinates of the Overworld position the player entered the Nether.
  •  x
    • The x coordinate.
  •  y
    • The y coordinate.
  •  z
    • The z coordinate.
•  seenCredits
  • Changes to 1 if the player leaves the End through the portal.
•  ShoulderEntityLeft and  ShoulderEntityRight
  • Contains entity data about an entity on the left and right shoulders of the player.
•  UpdateLastExecution
  • Defaults to 1b. If set to 0b, loops can be created, where the same command block can run multiple times in one tick.

Recipe books

• Catalogs recipes that are unlocked when the criteria are met.
• When a recipe is clicked, it will appear in the crafting grid, and can be crafted if materials are available.
  • A shift-click ability puts all available materials in the crafting grid.
• A new white-and-gray colored "toast" notification pops up when the player unlocks new recipes.
  • The pop-up notification that displays upon unlocking new recipes has an icon showing the items that can be crafted with the new recipes.
• If the player searches "excitedze" in the recipe book, their language switches to Pirate Speak.
• recipes folder added with all item recipes as .json files.

Sounds

• New note block sounds.
  • Bone block = xylophone
  • Block of gold = bell
  • Clay = flute
  • Packed ice = chime
  • Wool = guitar
• New sound effects for:
  • Parrots
  • Illusioners
  • Casting a fishing rod
  • Reeling in a fishing rod
  • Throwing an eye of ender
  • Eyes of ender exploding or popping back into item form
  • Putting ender eye in end portal frames (dinging sound)
  • Completing the end portal and having the portal spawn (evil sound)
  • Boat paddles
  • Player drowning
  • Player burning
  • Completing a challenge advancement
  • Toast notifications
• New cave sounds: cave17.ogg and cave18.ogg.

Splashes

• "Don't feed chocolate to parrots!"
• "The true meaning of covfefe"
  • Reference to a cryptic tweet from then–U.S. President Donald Trump.
• "An illusion! What are you hiding?"
• "Something's not quite right..."
  • The top two are references to Suramar City guards in World of Warcraft, who say these lines when a player, having an illusion on themself, goes nearby.
  • The splash about the illusion could also be a reference to the illusioner.

Tutorial hints

• Displayed in the top right.
• Only displayed once per device.
  • Saved per player, stored in options.txt.
    • Name: tutorialStep
    • List of criteria: movement, find_tree, punch_tree, open_inventory, and craft_planks

Changes

Blocks

Banners

• New palette texture.
• "Chief fess" and "base fess" banners are now just "chief" and "base" banners.

Beds

• Now the player can sleep when a neutral zombie pigman is near.
• Now the player can bounce on the bed, albeit much less than with slime blocks
• Now reduce (but not negate) fall damage when landed on.
  • The player can survive a 41 block fall onto a bed without armor.
  • Any higher, and the second bounce will deal the remaining amount of damage to kill them.
    • The player can create a platform around 7 blocks high beside the bed to land on to prevent death, in which case a player can survive a 45 block fall.
• Now a block entity, and each half can be colored individually using the NBT tag color.
• Beds now display as blocks, unlike Pocket Edition beds. Now use a 3D item model instead of a 2D item because of the new colors.

Buttons, levers, redstone torches, torches, and tripwire hooks

• Can now be placed on jack o'lanterns.
  • Redstone torches and torches still cannot be placed on top of jack o'lanterns.

Command blocks

• Now executes all of the commands in a chain before scheduling them for the next tick.
  • It is now possible to stop/modify the operation of a chain via commands and get results instantly (as opposed to getting them in a 1 tick delay).
• Optimized error conditions in command blocks.
• Tab-completing command names in command blocks will no longer add a / prefix.

Fences, cobblestone walls, glass panes, and iron bars

• Now connect to the back and underside of stairs.

Hardened clay

• Renamed to terracotta.

Magma blocks

• Are now able to burn infinitely, like netherrack.

Shulker boxes

• Colors changed in accordance with the changes to other block colors.
  • Purple shulker boxes unchanged.

Stairs

• The rear face and underside of stairs are now considered "solid".
  • Allows for torches, fences, iron bars, glass panes, cobblestone walls, and snow layers to connect to them properly.

Wool

• New palette texture.

Items

Maps

• Dyed blocks such as banners and terracotta now have unique colors.

Mobs

Sheep

• New color palette for wool on body.

Shulkers

• Colors changed in accordance with the changes to other block colors.
  • Purple shulkers are left the same.

Withers

• Can no longer break end gateway blocks and piston extensions.

Zombies

• New ConversionPlayerLeast and ConversionPlayerMost tags
  • Contains the UUID of the player that is converting the zombie.
  • Used with the "minecraft:cured_zombie_villager" trigger for advancements.

Non-mob entities

Minecarts with TNT

• No longer instantly explode when hit with fire charges; instead, they explode as if primed by an activator rail.

Paintings

• Will now try to place the largest possible in the available space it has.

Command format

• /give and /replaceitem
  • Now reinforces item-specific stacking restrictions.^[3]
    • This is a reverse of 16w32a (MC-105965 resolved as "Works as Intended").

General

Achievements

• Removed and replaced by advancements.

Controls

• Pressing F1 will now hide all toast messages.

Crafting

• Closing the crafting interface with items inside will no longer drop the items in front of the player, but will send them instead to the inventory.

Creative

• Materials tab merged with miscellaneous tab in creative mode.

Java version

• This is the first version to use, and thus require, Java 8.^[4]

Language

• Many pieces of text are now translatable, where previously they were hardcoded English.
  • The full list of changes can be found here.

Movement

• The player's body now entirely faces to the front, when moving backwards.^[5][6]
  • Prior to this update, moving backwards would cause the player model to rotate one side, making it look like the player was strafing backwards somewhat.

NBT format

• Improved NBT parsing in commands.
  • Keys can now (optionally) be quoted, e.g: "Motion":[0.0,0.0,0.0].
  • Unquoted string values are now stricter; they can no longer contain spaces or special symbols, e.g: CustomName:Test Test.
  • Indices, which were previously optional in lists, are no longer allowed, e.g: Motion:[0:7.3,1:1.0,2:3.1].
  • Empty keys and values are no longer allowed.
• Improved error messaging; now points to where exactly the error occurred.

Optimizations

• Huge optimizations to creative inventory searching.
• Optimized chunk loading.

Splashes

• "Now Java 6!" changed to "Now Java 8!"

Fixes

53 issues fixed

From released versions before 1.12

• MC-2813 – Snow doesn't form / cannot be placed on upside down slabs / stairs.
• MC-5228 – Cow's/Mooshroom's udder texture is wrong.
• MC-8345 – Placing torch on backside of stairs impossible.
• MC-9176 – Glass panes not correctly rendering with the back of stairs.
• MC-9565 – Fences and Cobblestone Walls connect to Fence Gates, which are facing the other direction.
• MC-10613 – Fence doesn't connect with stairs.
• MC-11240 – Ignited TNT can be set on fire by a Flame Bow.
• MC-11963 – bed hind legs not rendered.
• MC-12503 – Item Description is rendered behind Potion Effect Status in Inventory.
• MC-40275 – Credit screen/End Poem music not playing correctly.
• MC-50166 – Game states that "The block couldn't be placed" when using /setblock to place air in a space occupied by a tile entity, despite working.
• MC-59535 – Server log outputs TextComponent object rather than its Text property for player lost connection/Disconnecting message.
• MC-92324 – Players become invisible.
• MC-92527 – Villager trade items render over inventory tooltips.
• MC-94016 – Glass panes and iron bars connect to barrier blocks.
• MC-95367 – Tamed dog, cat or parrot in a minecart teleports to a player (not visually).
• MC-95560 – Wrong command message: Last character of NBT parsing error message is missing.
• MC-96555 – Wolves, ocelots and parrots can teleport in all non-full cube blocks near owner including path, lava, fire.
• MC-97662 – NBT parser regex checks for pipebars as tag declaration.
• MC-100468 – Dogs, cats and parrots teleport to player despite being in a boat (yet not visually).
• MC-101234 – Stack trace is not printed in log when exception occurs while running command.
• MC-103067 – The unit for "Minutes Played" statistic is not always minutes.
• MC-108175 – Villagers sent through an end gateway portal in a minecart lose their AI.
• MC-108304 – "Level Requirement" message is not translatable.
• MC-108343 – Minecraft crashes with "java.lang.NullPointerException: Ticking screen" while pinging server on multiplayer server list (previously due to network issues, now more frequent).
• MC-109663 – Tamed dogs attack tamed cats.
• MC-109871 – Some advanced tooltips are not translatable.
• MC-110243 – Sneaking + hit -> moved wrongly / no knockback.
• MC-110474 – Activator Rail ejects 2 block tall Mobs to the wrong spot inside of 2 block tall room.
• MC-111054 – Invalid lang in options.txt leads to connection error.
• MC-111699 – Can't rename stacked items.
• MC-111744 – Anvil outputs only 1 item when renaming.
• MC-111753 – Hopper/Dropper will not input water bottles into brewing stand after potions have been removed by a hopper from brewing stand.
• MC-112017 – The anvil rename field accepts 31 characters but the server rejects it if it is over 30.
• MC-112425 – Hitting rabbits with fire aspect sword: "Couldn't smelt 0xtile.air@0 because there is no smelting recipe".
• MC-112602 – "disconnect.spam" kick message is untranslated.
• MC-112765 – hoverEvent JSON with specified color does not share among new lines.
• MC-113125 – Loaded world shows clouds and void for few seconds.
• MC-113255 – Server does not test if some files exist before trying to interact with them.
• MC-113429 – Wither can break piston extension and end gateway.
• MC-114110 – Constructor for playerlist header and footer packet SPacketPlayerListHeaderFooter is missing footer parameter.
• MC-114219 – NBT integer array regex matches non integer arrays.
• MC-114220 – NBT integer arrays have trailing comma in string representation.
• MC-114281 – MutableBlockPos leak.
• MC-115407 – Loot entries serialize incorrectly.
• MC-116422 – Fires put out by splash water bottles do not cause block update.
• MC-116489 – Unknown entity property for entity_properties loot table condition causes server crash for default loot tables.
• MC-116623 – Stained hardened clay / terracotta blocks do not have correct color on map.
• MC-116669 – Exploding TNT minecarts and ender crystals can cause StackOverflow.
• MC-117197 – Message for non-existent team specified in entity NBT data is logged as info instead of warning or error.
• MC-117640 – Pets (wolves, ocelots, parrots) teleport onto magma blocks.
• MC-117710 – Bonus Chest setting is not copied when re-creating world.
• MC-117858 – Right-clicking an item stack into the creative mode item selector destroys the whole stack.

Video

Video made by slicedlime:

Trivia

• 1.12, along with Java Edition 1.8.2, had the most pre-releases of any update at the time, with a total of 7 pre-releases.
  • This was later broken by Java Edition 1.13, with 10 pre-releases.
• This version came out exactly 5 years before 1.19.

References