What's the difference between Minecraft 1.8 pre-release and actual release?

Jens and Notch fixed a ton of bugs between the pre-release and the release, including:

  • SSP chunk memory leak
  • Mineshaft density (half now)
  • Increased stronghold count to 3 per map instead of one
  • Furnace tile entity crash
  • Crafting bench ghost items
  • Vines (and leaves) crash in nether
  • Use item animation in SMP (blocking and eating)
  • Blocking in SMP
  • Sprinting with right-click or sneaking
  • Added some blocks to creative mode
  • Fixed dropping items
  • Nothing can be eaten in creative mode
  • Enderman client-side problems
  • Chicken and cow drop burned food
  • Squids drop exp
  • 1.7 worlds should get structures
  • Farmlands rejecting melon and pumpkin seeds
  • Bonemeal on melons and pumpkins
  • Bonemeal on mushroom only works on dirt or grass
  • Added item drops for cracked and mossy smooth stone brick
  • Adjusted fog strength at low positions

Changes reported by Jens on Twitter:

  • Fixed experience orb excessive spawning bug in SMP
  • Made cave spider poison scale with difficulty
  • Nerfed sprinting speed
  • Fog toggle key 'F' re-added, then removed, then re-added again as 'F3' + 'F'
  • Fixed crash when adding too many items to a double-chest in SMP

Changes reported by Notch on Twitter:

  • "Tweaked" Endermen (this potentially refers to the change in eye color and particle effect for Endermen in the final release)
  • Fixed issue with holding down right-click to place multiple blocks
  • Nerfed vine growth
  • Two unnamed fixes and two unnamed tweaks