Release Date: January 13, 2011
Edition: Java Edition Beta
Minimum Java Version: Java SE 5
Protocol Version: 8
Overview:
Beta 1.2 is the first Java Edition Beta release of 2011. It introduced new blocks, items, dyes, mobs, and gameplay mechanics, alongside improvements to world generation and multiplayer.
Additions
Blocks
- Cake: Crafted from 3 wheat, 1 egg, 3 buckets of milk, and 2 sugar.
- Dispenser: Crafted from cobblestone, a bow, and redstone dust.
- Lapis Lazuli Block: Crafted from 9 lapis lazuli.
- Lapis Lazuli Ore: Drops one lapis lazuli when mined.
- Note Block: Crafted from wooden planks and redstone dust.
- Sandstone: Crafted from sand.
- Spruce & Birch Logs: Can be crafted into wood planks.
- Spruce & Birch Leaves: Currently drop nothing.
- Dyed Wool: Expanded wool color spectrum including gray, light gray, black, brown, red, orange, yellow, lime, green, cyan, blue, light blue, purple, magenta, pink.
Items
- Bones & Bone Meal: Bones can be crafted into bone meal; bone meal used as dye or fertilizer.
- Lapis Lazuli: Used as a dye; 9 pieces craft a block.
- Cocoa Beans & Ink Sack: Used as dyes.
- Charcoal: Shares texture with coal, smelted from wood.
- Sugar: Crafted from sugar cane.
Mobs
- Sheep: New gray, light gray, and black variants; drop correspondingly colored wool.
- Squid: New underwater mob; drops ink sacks.
Changes
Blocks
- Cactus: Can now be smelted into green dye.
- Dandelion: Craftable into yellow dye.
- Furnace: Top texture changed from stone to unique design.
- Sugar Cane: Renamed from “Reeds”.
- Rose: Craftable into red dye.
- Spawners: Singleplayer now shows rotating mob model inside.
- White Wool: Can now be dyed.
- Crafting Table: Renamed from “Workbench”.
Items
- Tools: Durability increased:
- Wood, stone, iron: doubled
- Diamond: +50%
- Gold Tools: Faster than diamond for wood/stone; same durability as before.
Mobs
- Sheep: Can now be dyed.
- Skeletons: Now drop bones.
- Spiders: Can climb walls.
World Generation
- Taiga: Spruce trees generate instead of oaks.
- Forest: Birches generate alongside oaks.
General
- Screenshots: Press F2 to take screenshots without F1.
- Mods: Included FastRender mod by Scaevolus.
Removals
- Human mob (removed in this version).
Bugs
- Powered redstone sometimes fails to update.
- Rails always face north regardless of placement.
- Performance reduced causing random lag spikes.
Fixes (10 Bugs)
- Paintings now function in multiplayer.
- Disconnecting while riding no longer leaves player in world.
- Multiplayer state properly synced.
- PowerPC color and audio fixes applied.
- Fixed singleplayer chunk reload loop.
- Lighting bugs in new multiplayer maps fixed.
- Falling sand behavior improved in multiplayer.
- Game no longer crashes on loading worlds saved in newer versions.
- Corrected tooltips for Jack o’Lantern and bricks.
- Sheep visibly lose wool in multiplayer when hit.