Minecraft wiki entry for Development_versions, associated text: Added a enable-status option to the server.properties file which if set to false will suppress replies to status requests from clients.
This makes the server appear offline in the multiplayer screen.
Added control over how much entity data a server sends to clients: entity-broadcast-range-percentage server property, controlling how close entities need to be before being sent to clients.
Higher values mean entities are visible further away from players but cause more network traffic.
Specifies a percentage of the default value so, for example, 50 specifies half of the default range.