Minecraft

[Captain Sharktooth]

Anyone heard of the Yogscast? They're hilarious! And what exactly is the 1.8 update like? Are NPC villages still included with that?

[Swash]

Originally Posted by Captain Sharktooth

Anyone heard of the Yogscast? They're hilarious! And what exactly is the 1.8 update like? Are NPC villages still included with that?

The Yogcast is actually the reason I started playing Minecraft. Also here is the list of feature planned to come with the 1.8 Adventure Update:

1. Adventure update, to flesh out the game a bit and make exploration and combat more rewarding. Note that this is not Adventure Mode.

2. New features in the terrain generator; things which will only appear in new worlds/new generated areas.

3. Underground Ravines including canyons on the surface and ledges to walk on.

4. Ruins, consisting of 4 new blocks: Stone Brick, Mossy Stone Brick, Cracked Stone Brick, and Iron Bars. (names unconfirmed)

5. Strongholds, which might be an expansion, improvement, or continuation of ruins and could be underground.

6. New Mushroom biome which will include Huge Mushrooms, both brown and red.

7. Larger Biomes

8. Shift+Click on items will work correctly.

9. Labels for items will be added

10. Multiplayer server list.

11. Improved server join screen: The server join screen will feature a list of servers

12. Spike blocks, Jeb initially considered Spike Pistons, but then decided to make a Spike block that can be pushed by the Sticky Piston

13. Player List - Press tab in multiplayer and player list comes up

14. At least one new mob.

15. New improved lighting — day/night cycles will not require chunk updates. Lighting will be updated via a texture, whose coordinates are the block's sky light and block light levels.

16. Warmer light from torches.

17. Possibly Experience Orbs. Has not yet been confirmed by Notch, but is a possible explanation for the Twitter clues he's been leaving.

18. Redstone circuits not working after time set (x) glitch going to be fixed in SMP.

19. NPC Villages with farms.

20. New combat Mechanics

21. New texture for Moss Stone[

22. New and more farming options/items.[26][27] This could be the Cocoa Bean tree Jeb was talking about

23. Possibly farming animals and baby animals

24. Different game modes.

25. Limited flying in Creative mode

26. The ability to allow moderators to enter creative mode in SMP.

27. The ability to store multiple food items more efficiently in inventory.

28. Sliders for field of view, gamma and brightness in video options.
29. New launcher (Possibly).

30. User placed leaf blocks won't decay.

31. A lot of new sounds and some changes, such as minecart sounds and shear sounds, also a change in the sound of rain.

32. New bow sounds (including hits), new door sounds, big slimes sound, and walking skeletons sound more skeletony.

33. Sprinting: By double pressing the forward button, the player will move faster.

34. Critical hits

35. Hold-to-charge bows

36. Animal breeding

37. Player blocking attack animation and hostile mob attack animations, possibly more player animations

38. Modding Support

39. Other secret projects.

Found the list from the minecraft wiki
So far over 30 new features coming with 1.8, so the release date of the update is expected to be somewhere in late August or September.