Minecraft Update 9 Full Patch Notes Released

Mojang and 4J Studios are currently preparing to release the 9th update of Minecraft for the Xbox 360 version of the game. To that end, the developers have released the patch notes for what the upcoming update is set to contain.

Although the patch is done, the entire certification process will take about a week or two for Microsoft to give it the greenlight and put it up on Xbox Live for players to download and update their Minecraft clients with.

Notable inclusions in the game's 9th update include "The End", with a new layout and new behavior for the Enderdragon, stackable items, and performance improvements to the game's load times and lighting engine.

Here's what it contains:

•     Added ‘The End’, with new layout, and new Enderdragon behaviour.
•     Added Climbable Vines.
•     Added Fire Charge, Wooden Button, Item Frames, Spawn Eggs, Sandstone Stairs, Spruce Stairs, Birch Stairs, Nether Bricks, Spruce Planks, Birch Planks, Nether Brick Slab, Spruce Slab and Birch Slab.
•     Added new music for The End and The Nether from C418
•     Made buckets and signs stackable.
•     Sheep now re-grow their wool after shearing.
•     New gravel texture.
•     Can now smelt Netherrack into a Nether Brick in a Furnace.
•     Blacksmith buildings in Villages now hold chests with loot of the same type as found in Strongholds.
•     Crafting recipe change – Sign recipe gives three Signs.
•     Crafting recipe change – Half Slab recipes give six Half Slabs.
•     Crafting recipe change – Stone Button now requires one block of stone instead of two.
•     Added smoother color transitions between biomes.
•     Added beaches to terrain generation.
•     Fence Gates can now be opened and closed with Redstone.
•     Changed Nether Fortress to make Nether Wart rooms more likely.
•     Made Nether Wart spawn randomly wherever Soul Sand is generated in the Nether.
•     Nether Wart will now grow in the Overworld.
•     Made Dispenser dispense mobs from Spawn Eggs, rather than the egg itself.
•     Dispenser will dispense lava/water from a Bucket of Lava/Water.
•     Dispenser will shoot Fire Charges.
•     Trapdoors can be placed on half slabs and stairs
•     Allow players to block with a sword when the ‘Can Build And Mine’ option is unchecked by the host.
•     Moved six of the twelve music disc quests in the Tutorial World
•     Changed the Tutorial world to add climbable Vines, and some of the new items, and removed/reduced the items in the Brewing, Farming and Breeding chests.
•     Don’t show the achievements warning when loading a creative map that has already been saved in creative mode.
•     Reduced the volume of the Ghast sound effects.
•     Increased the distance jukeboxes can be heard from.
•     Improved lighting code performance.
•     Improved the loading/saving time.
•     Changed the display order in the Minecraft Store to show newest DLC first.
•     Added How To Play for The End and Farming Animals
•     Added HUD size options for both splitscreen and full screen modes.
•     Added Reset Nether option to force regeneration of The Nether. This is helpful for older saves that didn’t have a Nether Fortress.
•     Added a toggle for Death Messages.
•     Added a toggle to hide or display the animated character in the User Interface.
•     Allow individual splitscreen users to have their own settings for HUD.