Another snapshot is now available for Minecraft: Java Edition. This snapshot brings a few gameplay changes and some technical tidbits, such as the place command and cryptographically signed chat commands.

Enjoy!

Changes in 22w18a

Allays now follow their liked player even if they can't see them
Allays will only lose track of a player if they are more than 64 blocks away
The texture of the sonic boom particle has been updated
Vibration listeners such as Sculk Sensors, Sculk Shriekers and Wardens now listen to the closest vibration instead of the first vibration in the tick

Technical Changes in 22w18a

Banner patterns available in the Loom can now be controlled with tags (banner_pattern/no_item_required for no pattern item and banner_pattern/pattern_item/* for specific banner pattern items)
Servers can now define different chat style formats for clients
Removed the placefeature command
Added the place command
The bundled Java runtime has been upgraded to 17.0.3
Removed loot table function set_goat_horn_sound
Added loot table function set_instrument
Chat from the /say, /msg, /teammsg, and /me commands are now all also cryptographically signed

Chat Types

Different chat style formats can now be controlled by the server through the chat_type registry
- These are synchronized to clients when they join the server
- The translation key or translation format can be defined, like chat.type.text or %s says: "%s"
  - Chat can be similarly optionally narrated with a custom translation key or format
- The entire message can have formatting applied, such as italics or a specific color (but currently not click or hover events)

Place Command

New command that replaces placefeature and can place features, jigsaws and structures at a given location. Syntax:

place feature <feature> [pos]
place jigsaw <pool> <start> <depth> [pos]
place structure <structure> [pos]

Parameters:

feature: The namespaced id of a feature to try to place
structure: The namespaced id of a structure to try to generate
pool: The namespaced id of a template pool to start generating
start: The namespaced id name of a jigsaw to use as the starting anchor
depth: The maximum number of jigsaw connections to traverse during placement
pos: The position to use as the origin for the generation (if omitted, ~ ~ ~ is used)

Loot Tables

New functions

`set_instrument`

Sets item tags needed for instrument items to a random value selected from a tag.

Parameters:

options - a tag reference specifying the instrument options to randomly pick from

Fixed bugs in 22w18a

MC-207935 - Simultaneous vibrations don't trigger as expected
MC-232009 - Minecraft does not resolve SRV records correctly
MC-249021 - The invitation and news buttons aren't consistently displayed within the realms menu
MC-249129 - The walking animation of frogs doesn't change in relation to their movement speed
MC-249175 - Only one sculk vein drops when using a Silk Touch hoe on multiple in a single block space
MC-249454 - Sculk Catalysts will spread sculk if a baby mob that does not drop experience dies around it
MC-249732 - Allays lose picked up items on world restart
MC-249740 - Allays leashed to a fence do not move and refuse to pick up items
MC-249784 - Ancient Cities can be submerged in aquifers
MC-249857 - Parity Issue: Allays don't follow the player / note blocks as closely on Java
MC-250139 - Snow layers cannot be placed on top of mud
MC-250143 - Improper advancement description for "Sneak 100"
MC-250144 - "Sneak 100" advancement includes sculk shriekers as a block that can "hear" the player
MC-250145 - Warden/frogs continue animations when the game is paused
MC-250163 - Warden can still detect things after it dies
MC-250183 - Warden continues to roar when angered by an ignited creeper
MC-250198 - Warden continues to roar when the target of the enraged warden suffers an unnatural death
MC-250207 - Warden continues to roar at disconnected players
MC-250216 - Warden continues to roar at targets in unloaded chunks
MC-250218 - Warden continues to roar at despawned target
MC-250244 - Warden continues to roar when the target enters the nether portal, end portal or end gateway
MC-250245 - Warden sonic boom attacks can hit player even if the player has entered another dimension
MC-250292 - Wardens can sometimes freeze when overwhelmed with enemies/attacks/sounds
MC-250506 - Mangrove leaves can appear at a higher altitude when grown below y = 0
MC-250557 - Allay permanently stuck trying to pick up item stack if its slots contain stack of the same type with differing NBT (and vice versa)
MC-250864 - Game fails to load worldgen settings when .DS_Store files are present in datapack
MC-250926 - There is a goat horn in the creative Destroy Item slot / all tabs within the creative inventory contain goat horns
MC-250937 - User skins don't load in singleplayer
MC-250939 - Game crashes when a goat horn with an invalid sound variant is used / java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: Index
out of bounds for length 8
- MC-250954 - Player is assigned a new UUID in singleplayer
MC-250974 - MinecraftClientHttpException when opening/creating a world

Minecraft Snapshot 22w18a