Missing Texture for Items with Damage values

So don't create items with invalid damage values then.

This worked perfectly fine until now, Mog... An invalid value showed the default texture.

I'm not sure if you know much about adventure maps and custom map makers, but this is practically a required staple for villager trades, quests, and command block interaction.

Ripping this away from us with a stone face cripples the creatives in the community. I know I've got months of work – that's been growing with 1.8 – suddenly useless.

I'm fine with this change if a comparable, or better, solution is provided. Right now Mojang has given us nothing that I know of.

One of the major major uses non-default data values have is the ability to differentiate themselves from normal items in villager trades and crafting recipes. For instance, 339:1, which is paper with a data value of 1, can be placed in a trade with a name saying "1 Dollar". 339:2 can then be "5 Dollars". Etc. 339:1 can't be used in place of 339:2, and visa versa, nor can normal paper be used in place of either of them. Nor can 339:1 or 339:2 be used in crafting recipes that would normally take paper.

However, with this new system you guys have, it makes all our currency become black and purple boxes. That's not fun in servers wanting to make a tangible currency or adventure maps wanting to make quest items. And NBT Tags, to my knowledge, provide no alternative. If you were to make an invisible 'identifier' tag or somesuch that villagers would read, and something that kept the item from being used in crafting, that would be an acceptable substitute, in my eyes. Sure, it'd be a little more work than data values, but, it'd work. However, as it stands, no such thing exists and, as such, hundreds of thousands of servers, maps, etc. are likely going to be very broken with no alternative method to fix them.

And, while I haven't tested it, so I'm not entirely sure, I also have a feeling that 6-sided wood and piston variations are now broken as well, which were accessed by using non-default damage values because of the engine's quirky way of handling them. If that's the case, then many creative builds - specifically, massive trees and builds that use the 6-sided pistons as crates - will likely be decimated by this change. If this is indeed the case, I highly suggest they be put back in, as I've seen several hundred builds in creative servers using them to great effect.

I heard somewhere that this'll increase efficiency in map loading and the like. And, while that's all well and good, you need to be aware of what's being destroyed when you make these changes. If you break these little quirks in your engine that others rely on, then you HAVE to include a substitute, or else you're alienating some of the best creative minds in the game. And alienating content creators on a game based around content creation is a horrible, HORRIBLE move.

I suddenly feel much better. Ya, items already created suddenly have a missing texture.

Yup... I had a server I was creating in 1.7.10 but advancements in the 1.8 snapshots had me upgrade (for vital features that'd been missing) and prepare the server I'd been working on for a vanilla 1.8 release for friends, and public release when I had protection plugins available.

...unfortunately at one point everything that already existed in my map turned pink and black. I'd made heavy use of damage values because they were NECESSARY to do anything advanced.

I've been at a standstill ever since. I'm told this is in preparation for the plugin API, but that won't be release in 1.8... therefore map making features are now "intended to be completely broken, sorry guys" and that's pretty much that. I'm ... completely lost as to how to proceed in my own creations at this time. Really hope Mojang offers alternatives to what was lost... and soon. Not a year from now.