There’s new types of wood, stainable glass, packed ice, red sand, new flowers, enlarged portals, maps in item frames, new block colours, multiple texture pack selections…
October 25th will dawn a new day in Minecraft, providing the pre-release goes well says Mojang. There’s also a metric ton in bug fixes from this ”extremely hard” update.
Below is the official 1.7 update changelog:
New world generation!
◾Double the amount of biomes, with new trees/flowers/blocks.
◾New “Amplified” world option.
◾Less ocean, more awesome.
New blocks!
◾Two new types of wood.
◾Stained glass! With both blocks and panes.
◾Packed ice, red sand, podzol.
◾Lots of new flowers, including double-tall versions of current plants.
◾Portals can be bigger sizes!
Fishing!
◾Added more type of fish.
◾Redone the fishing mechanics. Can now catch junk and treasure too.
◾Fishing rod enchantments!
Maps!
◾Put them in an item frame and hang them on your wall. They’re extra big!
◾Lots of new colours for lots of blocks!
◾Now with less lag!
Achievement & Statistics overhaul!
◾Now both world (or server) specific.
◾In multiplayer, it’s announced to everybody when you get an achievement.
◾You can move your mouse over this in the chat to see what it was!
◾Some new achievements and statistic types were added.
◾Zoomable achievements screen!
Multiplayer enhancements!
◾Servers can now put a 64×64 image called “server-icon.png” in their folder, that you will see on your server list.
◾ You can see who’s online before joining a server; move your mouse over the player count!
◾Lots of hidden preparation for allowing name changes.
Resource pack changes!
◾You can now have multiple selected.
◾They can completely re-do your sounds, adding new ones or changing current ones.
◾Servers can now recommend a resource pack for you to use.
Chat & command improvements!
◾New commands to spawn mobs or blocks of any type.
◾Command block minecart!
◾Clickable links to achievements and items.
◾Click on somebody’s name in the chat to message them!
Lots and lots of technical work!
◾Completely rewrote how the network (multiplayer) works.
◾Completely rewrote the sound manager.
◾New graphics options.
◾Basic shader support testing.
◾Many bugs fixed