Hey there Minecraft fans, it may interest you to know that minecraft has been going through a phase of late where the new updates are first pre released to the hardcore fans before being added to the automatic download. What this essentially is, is the minecraft.jar file of the latest build but labeled pre release, which either Jeb or Notch host on the officail minecraft.net site and then tweet the url for fans that can’t wait for the official update. all you have to do is find where minecraft stores the files on your system and replace said jar file and you can run the early pre release, if there are any major catastrophic bugs found, then let the team know before they release the update for reals.
At first it seemed to be that the pre release build of 1.8 was leaked, and then notch said he didn’t mind but make sure you get it from their url, i don’t know why they had it hosted int he first place, i speculate that their are beta testers of the beta or something like that, but now both jeb and notch openly let the fans try it out. 1.9 has a pre release out, see @jebs_ tweet for the link http://twitter.com/jeb_/statuses/116880362793222144.
instructions after the break
The minecraft launcher should tell you where the files are and even link to them if you go to options before you log in (the link only worked in windows for me though), if you need to go there manually, Windows users and lion users may find that part of the file path has a hidden folder, in order to get to the minecraft directory you will need to show these hidden files.
Windows users should go to the menu in the window explorer (if you don’t have a menu then press alt should show it) then select Tools->Folder Options ->view and select the check box for show hidden files, folders and drives.
Lion users will need to open a terminal from Applications/Utilities and type “chflags nohidden ~/Library/” without the quotes to show the library in you home directory, “~/” is the Home or <yourname> part. now everythings visible, the location will typically be in:
Windows users will find the files in Users\<you>\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft
Mac users will find the files in Users/<you>/Library/Application Support/minecraft
I advise that you make a backup of the minecraft folder somewhere, put it in your documents and and name it of the back up current version.
Next up in the minecraft folder, then bin you’ll find minecraft.jar, or just minecraft with the file extension hidden, but the details will say Executable Jar file, replace it with the minecraft.jar you just downloaded from minecraft.net and run your game from the regular launcher. You may find that you want to turn the hidden files back to being hidden, windows user go back to the settings and select Don’t show hidden files and folders, Lion users should go back to the terminal and change nohidden to hidden “chflags hidden ~/Library/”.
As of this writing the 1.9 pre release is up, but notch tweeted a pic yesterday which was showing 1.9 pre release 2 http://imgur.com/qt1Ad?full, where he was experimenting with animal mobs breeding, so maybe there will be an updated pre release soon, and this is all while the game is in beta, which is itself a pre release of the final release in november, which will still see additions added even after release, soo it will just be the same but not beta basically. Clear? Good hehe
The pre release 1.9 has the addition of NPC’s as seen below, unfortunately they still don’t do anything as of yet, will be looking forward to when they do, i think it will make the game even more interesting than it already is.
