Minecraft 1.20.3 Pre-release 1: Short Grass & Better Pack Downloads!
A first pre-release is out for Minecraft 1.20.3 with changes for how the game downloads resource packs from servers, bug fixes, and the addition of short grass. Slicedlime, a Tech Lead for Minecraft at Mojang, provides a comprehensive guide to all the changes in this unofficial update video.
Gameplay Changes
In this pre-release, grass has been renamed to short grass, affecting both the displayed name of the block and item, as well as the ids used in commands and other data pack features. Additionally, TNT explosions now drop more than 16 blocks, and end crystals and TNT minecarts exploding due to player attacks now properly deal damage.
Visuals
Several visual improvements have been made, including the correct rendering of the outer layer of charged creepers and withers. The movement of entities now stops in the right place when pausing the game, enhancing the overall visual experience.
Experimental Features
The breeze, an experimental feature for update 1.21, can now attack when in a minecart, boat, under the effect of levitation, and in deep water. A bug related to the Monsters Hunted advancement has also been fixed, making the advancement obtainable again.
User Interface
Several user interface improvements have been made, including the removal of a broken unicode character at the end of an edit box due to length restrictions, and the correction of ctrl+backspace functionality when using higher codepoint unicode characters.
Technical News
The data pack version is now 26, and the resource pack version is now 22, both accounting for the changed name of grass to short grass. Additionally, the scoreboard players reset command now works again, and some error messages concerning scoreboard objects now print the correct information.
Resource Pack Downloads
Resource pack downloading has been overhauled, with changes such as the display of download progress as a toast, immediate download start when chunk loading begins, and the storage of downloaded packs in a dedicated folder. On the server side, resource packs have been given a UUID, and there is a new resource-pack-id field in the server.properties file.
Conclusion
With these changes, Minecraft 1.20.3 pre-release 1 introduces significant improvements to gameplay, visuals, user interface, and resource pack downloads. Slicedlime provides a detailed overview of all the changes, ensuring players are well-informed about the latest developments in the game.
For more Minecraft content, you can find Slicedlime on his YouTube and Twitch channels, as well as on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Patreon.