1.6.1,^[2] the first release of the Horse Update, is a major update to Minecraft (Java Edition) released on July 1, 2013,^[3] which added many new features including horses, leads, coal blocks, carpets, new commands, resource packs and a new launcher.

A pre-release version of 1.6.1 was released on June 28, 2013.^[4] This pre-release then became the full release of 1.6.1.

Additions

Blocks

Hay Bale

• Can be placed in all orientations
• Crafted with wheat in a 3×3 arrangement

Carpets

• Crafted with 2 colors of wool in a horizontal line, yields 3 carpets
• Can be placed on any block (even translucent ones)

Hardened Clay

• Obtained by smelting a clay block in a furnace

Stained Clay

• Comes in 16 colors, one for each dye.
• Similar to wool.
• Made by surrounding any dye with hardened clay in a crafting table

Block of Coal

• Crafted with 3×3 coal.
• Crafted only with coal, not charcoal.
• Can be used as furnace fuel and smelts 80 items, more than 9 coal (72 smelted items).

Items

Horse Armor

• Exist in diamond, iron, and gold variants
• Cannot be crafted and it can only be found in most types of generated chests, including in Dungeons, Nether Fortresses, Desert Temples, and Jungle Temples

Horse Spawn Egg

• Works like any other spawn egg
• Just like naturally spawned Horses, these Horses will have one of seven base colors and one of five variations of markings
• Sometimes a Donkey will be spawned instead

Lead

• Can be used to bind mobs to fences or lead them around
• Right-click mob first, then right-click fence or right-click the mob again to get the leash back
• Crafted with 4 string and 1 slimeball, yields 2 leads

Name Tag

• Found in dungeon chests
• Name it in an anvil, then right-click a mob to name it.

Mobs

Horses

• Creation assisted & inspired by DrZhark's Mo' Creatures mod
• To tame, ride them, and get thrown off a few times until hearts appear
• Can be bred using Golden Apples & Golden Carrots
• Drop Leather when killed
• Health can be restored using Bread, Sugar, Hay Bales, Wheat, Apples, Golden Apples & Golden Carrots
• Baby Horses can be grown the same way
• Players riding saddled Horses are granted full control over the Horse's movement
• Color, style, maximum health, jump height, and speed vary between Horses
• Open your inventory, right-click a Horse, or press the inventory key while sneaking and looking at a Horse to access their inventory to deal with their storage, armor, and saddle
• Rarely spawn in small groups

Donkeys

• Like horses, but smaller and gray, and can carry chests with 15 slots on their saddles.

Mules

• Obtained by breeding a horse with a donkey
• Can wear chests on their saddles, just like donkeys
• Not breedable with horses, donkeys, or other mules

Skeleton and Zombie Horses

• Introduced as the code of the normal Horse, although require third-party modifications to be used in the game. There is no current use of it at this time.

Gameplay

Status effects

• Health Boost
  • Gives player 4 base health; extra health vanishes when the effect ends
  • Can be acquired ingame by the command /effect <playername> 21 <duration in seconds> <amplifier>
• Absorption
  • Gives player 4 "absorption" health that cannot be replenished by natural regeneration or other effects, but would return every 30 seconds, regardless of the state of the rest of the health bar; absorption health vanishes when the effect ends
  • Can be acquired ingame by the command /effect <playername> 22 <duration in seconds> <amplifier> or by eating either tier of Golden Apple
• Saturation^{[note 1]}
  • Causes food meter to be replenished by 1 () per tick.
  • Can be acquired ingame by the command /effect <playername> 23 <duration in seconds> <amplifier>
  • Affects the hunger bar.
  • Does nothing if hunger bar is full

Command format

/spreadplayers

• Spreads certain players from an origin point
• Has a Max Spread and Minimum Distance from player to player
• Can be used with the team's scoreboard functionality to spread team members to the same location

/playsound^{[note 1]}

• Can use to play sound to player
• Can change the pitch and/or volume
• Can use sound from resource pack

/gamerule arguments

• naturalRegeneration
  • Toggles natural health regeneration
• doDaylightCycle
  • Toggles the day-night cycle (the sun stops moving and stays where it is)

General

Resource pack system

• Replaces the texture pack system
  • A conversion tool that converts texture packs into resource packs was released by Dinnerbone and is available here.
• Contains:
  • Textures
  • Sounds
  • Fonts (partially)
  • Language file
  • End credits
  • End Poem
  • Splash text
• New "missing texture" texture

Attribute system

• Item attributes using NBT tags:
  • Attributes can be additive, subtractive, and multiplicative using a set value
  • Some items have default modifiers in place of previously hard-coded attributes
  • Examples of possible changes players could make: A bow that slows the holder, a helm that buffs health, etc.
• Entity attributes:
  • These properties can now be changed as easily as any other NBT attribute
  • Entity speed, base health, base attack
• Other properties like weapon damage/bow draw speed/sword swing speed are yet to follow

Splash screens

• "HURNERJSGER?"
• "What's up Doc?"

Changes

Blocks

Lapis Lazuli Block

• Retextured subtly; it now has a border around it

Redstone Comparator

• Now give out a signal for Cauldrons and End Portal frames depending on their state
  • Cauldrons give from zero signal (empty) to three signal strength (full) depending on water inside
  • End Portal frame varies between zero and fifteen signal strength, depending on if an Eye of Ender is present

Command Blocks

• Can no longer be mined or destroyed in Survival mode

Lava

• Now decays properly

Items

Charcoal

• Retextured, with more brown shading to differentiate from coal

Saddle

• The player can now put a saddle on a horse

Golden Apple

• Golden apples now require gold ingots instead of gold nuggets to craft
• Golden apples now give Regeneration II for 10 seconds and both tiers give Absorption for 1 min 30 seconds

Glistering Melon

• Glistering melons now require 8 gold nuggets

Spawn Eggs

• Spawn eggs work on water

Flint and Steel

• Now loses durability when igniting TNT

Mobs

All mobs

• Mobs named "Dinnerbone" or "Grumm" are now flipped upside down.
• Now spawn in groups again.

Zombies

• Now have a small chance to spawn additional zombies when damaged or not being looked at.
• Able to lock onto the player from 40 blocks away (formerly 16 blocks).
• Mobbing zombies can now move when further than 32 blocks from the player.

Villagers

• Now have sounds for trading, getting hurt and other things.

Withers

• Armor has been retextured.^{[note 1]}

Spiders

• Now have a chance to spawn with potion effects.

World generation

Deserts

• No longer contain water lakes.

Nether

• Added chest generation in nether fortresses.

Gameplay

Riding mounts

• When riding a mob, its health is on the Heads-up display
• When riding on an entity, dismounting has changed from right-clicking the entity to using the Sneak key (⇧ Left Shift by default)
• New boat physics with lower inertia
• Boat controls have been changed from the A, S, and D keys to mouse control
• Boats now take damage and break when colliding with many lily pads in a short time

Respiration enchantment

• Now also helps seeing underwater

Changed the idea of mob difficulty

• Regional difficulty: The longer you spend in one area, the harder it gets
• Scales with difficulty - items, enchants, or AI improve with difficulty

Tooltips

• Added extra tooltip info in the search tab for the creative inventory, which shows what category a block/item is in
• Tooltips for swords, pickaxes, shovels, axes, and potions show how much damage the sword/tool does and what effect a potion will give

Status effect

• Balanced to improve gameplay
  • Instant Health nerfed by 33% (heals only 4 health points/2 hearts at level I)
  • Regeneration nerfed by 50% (takes 50 ticks/2.5 seconds to restore 1 health point/.5 heart at level I)

Hunger

• Natural health regeneration now costs hunger points/saturation points

Creative mode

• It is no longer possible to break blocks with swords in Creative mode
• The experience level is no longer displayed in Creative mode

General

Technical

• Support for Java 5 and PowerPC users will be dropped.
  • If a player has a PowerPC-based computer and/or Java 5 installed, a warning will be shown at the main menu.

Internal chat system

• Lots of messages should be translated now that were previously not
• Messages are now better modularized
• Server messages can be sent by their code-defined name, allowing the client to utilize the correct translation according to their language settings
• Color can be specifically designated, preventing leakage into further messages
• Updated language files and fixed missing strings

New launcher

• Increases performance and stability
• Minecraft game icon changed to a crafting table, presumably to differentiate between game and launcher
• Allows LWJGL to be updated, fixing many launcher bugs
• Supports multiple versions/installs
• Self updatable.
• New password storing system
• More user-friendly.
• A major step towards the Plugin API.
• New authentication system - "Yggdrasil", which is more secure and has more features
• If downloaded for free, it'll only let you play the demo world.
• Accounts are mandatory.

Realms

• Added handling of invitations
• Added resetting realm with one of the provided realm templates
• Added viewing backups for a realm and the ability to restore them
• Added setting the owner of a realm as game master operator
• Added confirmation screens for various actions such as deleting a realm
• Ability to leave someone else's realm that previously accepted an invitation for
• Fixed game mode and game difficulty issue
• Minor GUI fixes for better usability

NBT

• Saddle to EntityHorse has now been re-added.^{[note 1]}

Fixes

86 issues fixed

From released versions before 1.6.1

• MC-137 – Ping packet doesn't include host information.
• MC-188 – 'doFiretick' makes fire to not extinguish. Lighting makes fire all over the place!
• MC-483 – Keyboard Unresponsive on OS X.
• MC-505 – Boats float in middle of air after logout and re-login.^{[note 1]}
• MC-507 – Teleporting to Large Numbers Creates a Broken Error.
• MC-552 – Command block choosing wrong people / Selecting players cross-dimensional.
• MC-560 – Sound made by mobs in water causes massive FPS drop.^{[note 1]}
• MC-590 – Mobs not realizing they killed their attacker and trying to attack empty space.
• MC-607 – Running at a high resolution causes large portions of the screen to be UNCLICKABLE.
• MC-671 – Minecarts with Furnace consume coal in creative mode.
• MC-820 – Death messages in English regardless of the selected language (Multiplayer).
• MC-1038 – Beacon Block Incorrect Texture When Surrounded by Blocks.
• MC-1124 – Mouse "Back" and "Forward" open menu in windowed mode.
• MC-1126 – Server command "/whitelist list doesn't display the full list of players.
• MC-1159 – Mouse wrongly positioned in fullscreen.^{[note 1]}
• MC-1202 – Mobs spawn and then quickly despawn in peaceful. Looks like the "ender-porting-out-of-water" effect.
• MC-1229 – Compasses in item frames move with the player.^{[note 1]}
• MC-1320 – Dogs won't stop snarling after being punched by someone else.
• MC-1497 – Damaged Anvils do not show damage in inventory or item frame.
• MC-1598 – Zombie pigmen burn for a moment in daylight.^{[note 1]}
• MC-1903 – Console command and set console for a block in Command Block merge when in windowed mode.
• MC-1980 – Zombie villagers are able to despawn during the curing process.
• MC-2097 – You can't get "The End?" achievement.
• MC-2200 – Sleeping while in a minecart produces a graphical glitch.
• MC-2419 – PersistenceRequired tag freezes mobs.
• MC-2453 – Jack-o-lantern name is mispunctuated.
• MC-2476 – Regeneration increases the speed at which damage is taken from cacti, lava, and fire.^{[note 1]}
• MC-2559 – Squid taking damage while in water.
• MC-2692 – Hard to spawn squid.
• MC-2758 – Derailed minecarts float when reloading the world.^{[note 1]}
• MC-3008 – Regular skeleton's melee damage is unaffected by the sword type.
• MC-3090 – Unable to play the game unless LWJGL is manually replaced.
• MC-3695 – Boats/Minecarts and Ender Pearls don't mix.
• MC-3737 – Placing water sources into some blocks yields no drops.
• MC-3798 – 3D Anaglyph biome color corruption.
• MC-3914 – Grass can't be tilled under plants/signs while dirt can.^{[note 1]}
• MC-3960 – After the last use of a bow you get a glitch bow that when dropped and picked up again duplicates.
• MC-4266 – Death counter does not update.
• MC-4631 – Lava decay fails to schedule block update.
• MC-4822 – Skeletons attack like zombies when hit in creative.
• MC-6721 – Ctrl + Alt + Esc crashes Minecraft.
• MC-6828 – Brewing stand feet' sides are transparent when placed against a wall.
• MC-7134 – Silverfish breaking blocks when "mobGriefing" is set to false.
• MC-8073 – Switching from windowed to fullscreen and back moves the point of view.
• MC-9026 – Splash potions particles are incorrect.
• MC-9317 – /scoreboard syntax missing (/help scoreboard).
• MC-9355 – Argument "team" does not work with "!" for other players.
• MC-9584 – Cactus texture error when near a wall.
• MC-9917 – In multiplayer screen holding shift and pressing "down" without selecting any server crashes the game.
• MC-10601 – Can't use the scroll wheel in crash reports.
• MC-11033 – Item count/numbers randomly flickering in item bar, inventory, workbench.
• MC-11199 – Eye of Ender does not always lead to the nearest Stronghold.
• MC-11385 – Scoreboard problem with "seeFriendlyInvisibles".
• MC-11439 – Memory leak switching texture packs.
• MC-11595 – 1.5 HD Texture pack stitched images greater than 2048 resolution result in massive performance drops.
• MC-11605 – Certain death messages will print "null" as the player/mob name that caused the death.
• MC-11765 – Command Blocks breaking easily in survival.
• MC-12017 – Can get permanently stuck in a minecart in a nether portal.
• MC-12241 – Minecart collision boxes are briefly positioned wrong.
• MC-12526 – Minecarts off-track float.
• MC-12569 – Sitting in minecart is higher than it should be.
• MC-12733 – Minecart hitbox too large.
• MC-12906 – in the /help menu, the /debug option does not show the <start/stop>.^{[note 1]}
• MC-13177 – New Client and Server Outputs Increase Loading Time.
• MC-13276 – Zombies with increased health don't deal damage.
• MC-13330 – Mob armor percentage likely error.^{[note 1]}
• MC-13559 – Pick block from inventory in creative doesn't preserve the size of stacks.
• MC-14218 – Minecraft can't handle 4096x4096 or larger cloud textures.
• MC-14757 – Stacked Entity Spawner creating mass duplicate ghost entities.
• MC-14795 – Wither is still named "Withern" in German.
• MC-14926 – Cannot use resolution clock and compass textures with resolutions higher than 16x16.
• MC-15145 – Receiving a very high amount of damage at once creates ghost mode in multiplayer.
• MC-15732 – Achievement "We Need to Go Deeper" rewarded for going through an End Portal.
• MC-16075 – Entities other than the player can't leave the end.
• MC-16530 – When under resistance effects above 5, /kill command does not work.
• MC-16554 – lang files for en_US is grammatically incorrect at death.fell.finish.item.
• MC-17037 – No error report when Minecraft crashes.
• MC-17280 – Freezes When Moving.
• MC-17701 – Fire Animation Jumps and skips frames.
• MC-18088 – Sticky and unregistering keys during normal Minecraft play only, AMD processor driver conflict?
• MC-18324 – Text misplaced on Direct connect, Rename World screen.
• MC-18483 – Shift clicking on the destroy item button in multiplayer doesn't work.
• MC-18640 – Crash when language file of currently selected language is missing.
• MC-18713 – If a team name has "-" in it, the argument for seeing if anyone is in the team doesn't work.
• MC-19029 – Instant health effect set to a 29, 61, 93...253 value kills any player without any death message.

From the current version, hotfixed

• MC-19849 – The game starts and has the Mojang title, but then the next slide is black except the bottom left corner, which is dirt.

Notes

References