Minecraft Snapshot 12w06a now available

Lead developer Jens Bergensten and the dev team have been hard at work, bringing a ton of a changes in this week's Minecraft update.  The Minecraft Snapshot 12w06a is now live and available for downloading, adding rare mob item drops, cat sounds, and minor bug fixes and tweaks.

Below is the list of changes in the development snapshot for week 6, 2012 (via Mojang):

• Many minor bug fixes and tweaks
• Doors have been changed to properly detect if they are open or closed. Double doors in existing maps will need to be updated
• Villagers will move indoors during night and rain, and socialize with each other
• Zombies will break down wooden doors on hard difficulty
• Added cat sounds
• Better movement for mobs in water
• Added rare mob item drops

Although zombies were only intended to break down wooden doors on hard and hardcore difficulty, Jens did say there is a bug which tends to make them to break down iron doors.  He did say it would be fixed.

To download the snapshots, visit:

• Client: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w06a/minecraft.jar
• Server: http://assets.minecraft.net/12w06a/minecraft_server.jar

In addition to these changes, Jens also announced plans to increase the default world height in Minecraft.  Though this is likely to happen "in the future", Jens has already at work on it, making a converter that would prevent the new height from destroying current maps.  Once implemented, the new height would update current worlds by adding more air blocks on top, as to not force current Minecraft players to restart a world. to have the changes.

Shortly after he released the Minecraft Snapshot 12w06a, he revealed some screenshots of the new world format on his Squid Server world.  According to him, it is "working well".