About a week ago, I did a small post on Minecraft 1.8, sharing my early experiences. I've once again learned that playing with friends makes every aspect of the game better. This time around though, I have many more screenshots to help accentuate my point. Also, we have collectively delved more greatly into the new features of the game. Before I start, I should share that there is a Minecraft 1.9 version already in circulation, it is a pre-release version.
Check that out here: https://twitter.com/#!/jeb_/status/116880362793222144. It should be noted that the pre-release is probably buggy and is a download, not an auto update. Presumably that means that 1.9 is already on it's way, which will add npc's to villages and a bunch of other unknown possibilities.
Here is a teaser for Minecraft 1.9.



Day 1
We started in the middle of the ocean, all of three of us, struggling to survive from the moment of login, wonderful spawn point I must say. A desert was nearby and we swam to it and hastily chopped down some trees. By the time we had some wooden weapons and tools the sun was setting, something to fear without a shelter. So, we hastily took some sand, wood and stone to create a makeshift hut that looked like crap, but it saved us from the night. Throughout the night endermen, zombies, skeletons and "fearsome" pigs roamed around our hut. Every once in a while we beat some zombies down with wooden weapons, which made the night pass more quickly. The day came and we excitingly traveled into the nearby woods, hoping to find some ruins, mines, towns or sheep ( for wool). We hit the ocean soon enough and noticed that the forest was next to a very large mountain side, a menacing looking mountain side that had lava running down the side of.





















Day 2
We traveled to the ocean as the sun started to lower once again, for our second day, and spotted a fittingly large island not too far from land. We swam out there and claimed it, making it quickly into our island fortress, planting grain, growing more trees and throwing torches on everything. One of my compatriots dug deep into the earth, straight down, looking to find some redstone to create compass's, so we could make maps, but I had the gall to run off into the forest during the night. This is where I encountered my first enderman fight. The enderman are quite silly, carrying around pieces of whatever they decide to pick up, constantly moving around block of terrain. They seem quite peaceful and harmless, that is until you strike them or look them in the eyes. I had the pleasure of having an endermen teleport to me from quite a long distance away, attemping to murder me with quick attacks. Thankfully, I beat him down quickly and got myself my first ender pearl, which currently has no use what so ever, but it was still exciting.

Dark Enderman in Dark Forest is too Dark!

Day 3 
As I was wondering out in the woods, one of my friends had dug deep into the earth, successfully finding red stone, allowing us to create compass's. With the compass's we then created maps and maps are gorgeous and I love them. They are beautiful with their low graphical style. When you start reading a map for the first time it marks that location as the middle of the map, so you can go fairly far in every direction uncovering the map. You can even share your map with others players, by copying the map, but we couldn't figure out how to copy a map ,although showing your map to other players is easy enough though.













Weather has been around for a couple updates, but we all experienced rain for the first time. Rain is fantastic, it doesn't run through objects (you can hide from it under trees), it doesn't kill torches (thank god) and it sounds fantastic, especially underground. It rained for a long time and eventually we went underground, where my friend found red stone, and as we were creating a underground tunnel from the island to the main land, we broke into a mine. This was one hell of a mine, huge canyons, tons of spiders, chests, dungeon hearts and so many spider webs.