First Impressions of Minecraft Beta 1.8 Pre-release (now 2)

I have been playing around a little bit with the pre-release of Minecraft 1.8. I have been playing my normal world and then just reverting to a saved copy when I go back to 1.7.3.  Right at this time I am just exploring,  I load up on supplies and take off in a direction to see what I find.  I thought I would give my impressions of what I have seen so far.

General
Generally the updates look good.  I like what I am seeing.  I am praying that the performance is going to get better.  I don't run the top of the line game machine, but geez, I had to move my graphics from Fancy to fast and my Distance from Far to Normal and I STILL get real laggy at times.  I hope it is just because of the new world parts being gen'd for the first time or something. I really will have a hard time justifying upgrading my machine for Minecraft... It's one thing if it is a brand new MMO or super fancy FPS... but Minecraft??  Really?  This game requires that much horsepower?

Rivers
Rivers are awesome.  I am burning through my boats.  It's like taking the "It's a small world" boat ride at the amusement park.  I really enjoy meandering through a biome on a river.  That is a GREAT addition.

Villages

I finally ran into a village during my exploring.  They are pretty neat.  I got to see the new tables (fence post with wood pressure plate on top) and thought the general layout of the village was neat.  I liked the fact there was 2 furnaces and a lava pit in the village, it made that building look like a smithy or something.  I looked into the well that was in the village and fell in!  duh.  So that well doesn't quite look right anymore since I mined my way back out. hehe

Ravines
I have ran into a couple of ravines... literally :)  and what I have seen of them so far is pretty cool.  They are deep, very deep...  It's a long fall, trust me.  I haven't been able to explore one yet... well, see the first sentence.

Enderman
The Enderman are ok.  They are just another hostile mob.  I have not had any issues finding Enderman, and very little issues killing them.  I am wondering if they are not bugging out when they teleport at times.

Health Bar and Food Bar
The food bar is OK.  I really miss not being able to heal in the middle of a fight though.  Every once and a while I would get myself in a mess and would eat a couple of times to get through the fight, not anymore.  Eating only raises my food bar, who cares when 3 creepers are chasing me and a few skeletons are plucking at me.  I think the spawn rate of hostile mobs at night can be a little crazy.

New Blocks
The new blocks are good.  I really like having different textured blocks to build with, my favorite by far is the  glass panes.  They are awesome!  They really make my modern house look better.  I am going to replace most of my glass blocks with the panes for sure.  I am not sure where I need to use the iron bars, but I am going to find a spot for them, just because they look cool.

THANK YOU for the fence gate!  Finally!  Do you know how stupid all our farms looked with doors to get in! :)


New keys, etc.
The chest are nice the the lids open, but since I made Ethos storage with a 100 chests all over  in the walls and the ground, the building looks goofy as all get out with nothing lining up correctly.  I know it is a cosmetic thing, but didn't anyone at Mojang ever put a chest in the ground?  or one in a minecart for crying out loud?  The SHIFT-CLICK seems to work on more things now, which I like a lot.  If I put 64 sticks and 64 coal in my crafting slots, once shift click and I get all the torches... very nice.  Speaking of stacking.  STACKED FOOD IS AWESOME!  I love walking around with 64 roasted pork, way better than before.  The double tap "w" to sprint is nice.  I use that often.  It quits on me at different times that I find odd.  I can't tell if it is a bug or not.

I haven't figured out poison yet, but I can tell you that if you eat the zombie food, your food bar turns green and you are poisoned.  I will have to spend some time researching I guess.


Hostile and passive spawners
My hostile spawner seems to be working fine.  No more feathers, darn... not!  The passive mob spawner is not working at all at this point.  It was cranking out probably 500ish items an hour, and not it hardly drops anything.  I am not sure if I haven't got it "spawning" correctly, or something special, but I keep trying different things without much luck.  I am little disappointed in that, but hey, I do have TONS of leather, wool and pork now.

What kinds of things have you found?  Leave a comment and share!