A new update for Minecraft is now live, and with it many new features including 4 New Mobs, Stay Hungry Longer, New Villagers, Treasure Maps, And More! This update is called the exploration update and focuses mostly on survival. With a very recent panel at Minecon we were shown many of the new features.

Hunger:

In Minecraft 1.11 the hunger system is changed and it allows you to stay hungry longer. Here is a chart showing you the difference between the older versions and Minecraft 1.11:

New Villagers and Treasure Map:

Two new villagers are added into the game. The green villager is a Nitwit, he has no trades, but the white villager has trades. He is a Cartographer, in other words he sells treasure maps. What do treasure maps do? They lead you to different monuments around the world. Once you get within range of the map it will start to color in. The little dot on the map is you, and the maps are always pointing north, so you must figure out which way to travel in order to reach the monument. This leads to the next new addition:

New Monument:

The new monument in the update is the Woodland Mansion. These monuments can be found in forest biomes and are huge. As you can see from the image you can obtain treasure maps leading to said mansions. These mansions are full of new mobs and other cool stuff.

New Mobs:

Vindicator

The vindicator is an outcast Villager who will spawn in the Woodland Mansion. You will encounter many of these in your trek through the mansion. They are holding an iron axe and will drop it on occasion, they can also drop emeralds. Vindicators are hostile so beware when traversing Woodland Mansions.

Evoker

Vindicators are not the only mob you have to look out for in Woodland Mansions. The Evoker is a powerful mob which can summon Vexes (see below) to aid it in it’s fight. It’s other powerful attack is a “fang” attack. These fangs emerge from the floor and “chomp” the player dealing two and a half hearts of damage (5). The Evoker drops emeralds and a new item called the “Totem of Undying” (more on this later).

Vex

The final mob that spawns in the Woodland Mansion is the Vex. These mobs are small and resemble small ghosts as they can fly through walls. When they attack the player, since they are hostile, their skin changes from normal to what is seen in the picture and they charge at you. They are holding an iron sword and will probably have a chance to drop it.

Llamas

The final new mob introduced in Minecraft 1.11 is the Llama. These mobs are incredible. They can carry items, be decorated with carpet, spit at wolves and probably some other mobs, and they will follow each other. When you attach a chest to a Llama it will gain six inventory slots where you can place whatever you want. If you have a lot of stuff you need moved then round up a caravan of Llamas, they will follow other Llamas nearby. Carpets are used as a saddle, which allows them to be ridden, with each carpet giving a different texture to your Llama. Llamas will spawn with different fur designs, and babies will spawn as well.

New Items:

Totem of Undying

This item is dropped by the Evoker in the Woodland Mansion. The Totem of Undying will save the player from imminent death as long as the player is holding the totem (in either hand). When the player would normally die, the totem saves the player at half-a-heart and gives absorption and regeneration for a short time. This is a one time use item, but will be very valuable in survival.

Shulker Shell

This is a new item occasionally dropped by Shulkers. It is used to craft a new block, and one of my favorite aspects to the whole update, The Shulker Box:

Shulker Box

The Shulker Box is a new item which allows you to carry items inside of it, even after it is broken. That is right, a backpack. These boxes are shown to be able to be broken by your fist, so you don’t need to carry around any special tools to break it. You can not carry a Shulker Box inside of a Shulker Box to create infinite storage. Another neat aspect is that it can be broken by pistons, traveled by hoppers, and placed by dispensers. A new item sorting machine will probably not be to far from the release of this update, especially with the next new block:

Observer

The observer is a new redstone item which allows you to detect block updates. When a block is placed in front of the Observer it sends a redstone signal out the back of it. This will be very helpful for automatic farms, especially since it is very cheap to build.

Curse Enchantments

A new aspect to the game is Curse Enchantments. They are essentially negative enchantments. There are two Curse Enchantments, the Curse of Binding, and the Curse of Vanishing. The Curse of Binding causes the armor piece that it is applied to to be stuck after you equip it. The only way to take it off is by death or by it breaking. The other curse is the Curse of Vanishing, this causes the item it is applied to to disappear once the player dies instead of dropping. We are uncertain if these curses will only be obtainable in loot from monuments, or if you can receive them when you enchant an item.

Locate Command

You can kiss those days of searching and searching for naturally spawned monuments in creative. The new Locate command allows you to search for the nearest monument of a specified type, and tells you the exact coordinates of said monument.

That is all of the major features in the update, there are many more smaller changes and if you would like to read them you can check out the Official Wiki.