Minecraft 1.8 Adventure Update Now Available

Update! The Minecraft 1.8 Adventure Update is now live! You can download it through the launcher right now!

Update features:

• Three new mobs.
  • New Enderman mob.
    • They take damage from water.
    • They emit purple smoke particles.
    • They drop Ender Pearls.
    • They open their mouth when hostile/looked at.
  • New Silverfish mob.
    • Will spawn from rarely generated blocks, that look identical to stone, or stone bricks.
  • New Cave Spider mob.
    • They spawn in Abandoned Mine Shafts.
    • Their attacks are venomous, and turn the player's health yellow upon being poisoned (will not kill you but will make you lose 4 health bars, if you are below 4 health bars then it will bring you down to  heart).
    • Have a unique mob spawner.
    • They are smaller than regular spiders.
• 9 new blocks and crafting recipes
  • Stone Brick
    • Stone Brick Slabs
    • Stone Brick Stairs
  • Brick Slabs and Brick Stairs
  • Fence Gates
  • Glass Panes
  • Iron Bars
  • Melons
  • Melon Seeds
• New Creative game mode.
  • Flying by double tapping Space
  • Unlimited resources
  • A new screen, the Unlimited Item Selection screen
• New features in the terrain generator; things which will only appear in new worlds/chunks.
  • Optional structures
    • NPC Villages with farms and "town borders".
      • Contain houses, "smithies", and wells: all of which are connected through gravel pathing
      • Made of: Cobblestone, Mossy Cobblestone, Wooden Planks, Wood, Torches, Cobblestone Stairs, wooden stairs, Gravel, Fence, Glass and/or Glass Panes, Ladders, Wooden Doors,Crops, Farmland, Water, Lava, Furnaces, Iron Bars, Black Wool, bookshelves and Pressure Plates.
      • Will spawn only on flat areas.
    • Strongholds, consisting of 4 new blocks: Stone Brick, Mossy Stone Brick, Cracked Stone Brick, and Iron Bars.
      • Will only spawn 3 times in a map.
    • Abandoned Mine Shafts
      • Contains naturally generated Cobweb.
    • Underground Ravines including canyons on the surface and ledges to walk on.
  • New, fractal-based biome code, spawning much larger versions of existing versions along with 5 new biomes
    • Rivers flowing through/in between biomes.
    • Ocean Biomes, that are deeper and much more vast than before.
    • Mountain biome.
    • Swamp biome, which is the only biome to generate vines on trees. Mushrooms are more commonly generated here as well.
    • Clay is now much more abundant
    • Snow in Taiga and Tundra biomes does not generate for technical reasons. They will return in Beta 1.9
• New combat Mechanics.
  • Hold-to-charge bows.
    • 3 different charged states; takes less than 1 second to fully charge.
    • Fully charged bows causes the player to walk slower.
  • Critical hits.
    • When the player hits a mob while jumping.
    • When the mob is hit by a fully-charged arrow.
  • Player blocking attack animation and hostile mob attack animations.
    • Block "stance".
  • Mobs killed by the player drop tiny flashing Experience Orbs that add to your experience bar.
• New Food System.
  • There is now a food meter.
    • Food no longer heals directly but indirectly: if the food meter is above 80%, heals  about every 5 seconds.
  • All food (except Mushroom Stew) is stackable.
  • Food takes 1.6 seconds to consume, accompanied with an animation.
  • 5 new food items.
    • Melon Slices.
    • Raw Chicken.
    • Raw Beef.
    • Cooked Chicken.
    • Steak, which has Cooked Porkchop's old texture. Cooked Porkchops' new texture is a tan shade of the same sprite.
  • Eating any raw food or Rotten Flesh has a chance to give the player food poisoning.
• New farming options, more interesting farming.
  • Plantable pumpkins and melons, each with a central stem that grows to max size and spawns a fruit next to it.
  • Melon Seeds.
  • Pumpkin Seeds.
• A new achievement: "Kill a skeleton with an arrow at 50 meters".
• Sprinting: By double pressing the forward button, the player will move faster.
  • Sprinting is limitless, but will deplete your hunger bar.
  • Hitting a mob while sprinting sends them flying.
  • Jumping while sprinting boosts the jump to a length of about 4 blocks.
  • Sprinting makes particles come up from the ground.
  • While sprinting, the field of view slightly increases.
• Mob changes
  • Passive mobs will randomly flee if attacked by the player or other mobs (such as Wolves).
  • Zombies drop Rotten Flesh instead of Feathers.
  • The snout on pigs now protrude from their head.
  • Skeletons now hold full-size bows.
    • Skeleton arrows originate from about their eyes to the bow, instead of above the head.
• New uses for shears.
  • Vine
  • Tall Grass
• New improved lighting
  • Day/night cycles no longer require chunk updates. Lighting is updated via a texture, whose coordinates are the block's sky light and block light levels.
  • The lighting on a block is given a tint based on the most prominent source of light
    • Redish from Non-sunlight light sources
    • Blue from Moonlight
    • Total darkness keeps the same black tint
    • Sunlight gives the same white tint
• Main Menu/Options changes
  • The Main Menu's background is now an animated scene.
  • In the Main Menu, the version in the main menu is in the lower left, instead of the upper left.
  • New sliders for Field of View and Brightness
  • 4 new entries in control list
    • "Attack" and "Use Item", default to left and right click respectively
    • Player list, default to tab
    • Pick Block, defaults to scroll-wheel click
  • Improved server join screen: The server join screen features a list of servers.^[1][2][3]
• New texture for Moss Stone.
• Clouds change color during sunrise and sunset to match the sky color.
• New particle effects.
  • Performing a critical hit on any mob will cause 'sparks' to fly.
  • Explosion particles are now shockwaves instead of smoke.
  • Tiny stationary bubble particles can be seen when underwater.
  • Fog is now thicker and darker deep underground, and gives off particles. Due to this, the void appears black.
• Changes with debug-view (F3)
  • Mobs are no longer visibly labeled with their entity ID
  • The world's numeric seed is displayed in a field below player position.
• User-placed leaf blocks no longer decay.
• Cloud height raised to the top of the map, so clouds no longer go through buildings.
• Cloud movement syncs with the time.
• Rain and snow renders faster.
• Armor bar moved to above hearts, due to food bar.
• Player to mob damage decreased by half a heart.
• Pressure plates can now be placed on fences.
• Arrows that hit a mob visually "stick" to the mob.
• Improved chest model with a 3D lock and an open state/animation.
  • They are now slightly smaller than one full block, and cannot have a breakage texture applied to them.
• Rollover labels for items.
• The ability to allow moderators to enter creative mode in SMP.^[4]
• Easier changing of the max level (map) height.
• Shift-Clicking items will craft the maximum possible amount of what you are trying to craft with the limit at 64 and will directly put it in your inventory without the need to drag it there. (e.g. You have 16 coal above 16 sticks and you shift click the torches, a stack of torches (64) will appear in your bottom usage bar)

Bug Fixes:

• The Shift+Click crash bug from 1.8pre2 is fixed.
• Fixed Redstone circuits not working after /time set x glitch going to be fixed in SMP.
• Destroying boats and minecarts now creates particles.
• Ghast attack sounds are fixed in SMP.

New bugs:

• Version number is still shown at the top-left of the screen while debug is off.
• The destruction animation for chests is missing.
• If you place a torch underwater, the torch will fall off but its light will remain.
• Experience orbs when dropped don't drop in a stack like items do, so when a player dies when they have a large number of experience, each orb has to be processed individually. This will cause a high amount of lag, especially for SMP servers.
• Some computers are unable to open some worlds for unknown reason.
• Occasionally minecraft crashes when a bed is placed.

Source: Minecraft Wiki