On Friday, Mojang will release a new update packed with solid improvements.

With over half a million lines of code changed, 1,100+ commits and 80+ bugs fixed, Mojang is releasing one of the biggest Minecraft updates in recent memory with Update 1.7. With a slew of interesting changes and overall improvements, this could bring back a few players who abandoned their worlds long ago. Here’s a summary of what you can expect starting Friday:

World Generation: The number of biomes has doubled, with lots of additions to the natural scenery; this includes new trees / new types of wood. Mojang has also reduced the amount of ocean in the world, and added an "Amplified" option to world generation.

Blocks: Stained glass (blocks and panes), packed ice, red sand, podzol, and bigger portals.

Fishing: More fish, more things to catch, and fishing rod enchantments.

Maps: Better map-hanging on walls, more colors, less lag.

Achievements & Statistics: A&S are now world/server specific, announced in server chat and zoomable on the achievement screen. There are also a few new ones.

Multiplayer: Servers can now represent themselves with a small 64px icon, you can see who's in a server before joining, and lots of back-end preparation for allowing name changes.

Resource Packs: You can now use multiple resource packs, they can completely redo your sounds, and servers can recommend a resource pack for you to use.

Chat: New commands, a command block minecart, and more clickable things in chat.

Technical: Networking/multiplayer and the sound manager have been completely redone, graphics options were added, and basic shader support was tested.

Bugs: Fixed over 80 specific bugs, listed in the full summary.

For a full summary of the extensive changes check out Mojang's official post on the update.
 

Colt "ShdwFlm" Casey
Deputy Editor