The latest Minecraft: Java Edition snapshot makes more changes to ore

A new snapshot to tease changes coming this year to Minecraft.

What you need to know

• Minecraft: Java Edition tests upcoming updates, changes, and more through slices of pre-release software known as snapshots.
• Minecraft: Java Edition Snapshot 21w18a is now available to testers, and includes new bug fixes on top of some changes.
• The highlight of today's snapshot is some further tweaks to ore distribution and cave generation from the 'Caves and Cliffs Update.'
• The 'Caves and Cliffs Update' was recently split into two parts and partially delayed, changing the way features are tested.

The Minecraft community may be focused primarily on the announcement that cross-save is now available for Minecraft Dungeons, but the PC-centric legacy version of Minecraft still has something up its sleeve with the release of Minecraft: Java Edition Snapshot 21w18a. The latest Minecraft: Java Edition snapshot continues work on the upcoming Caves and Cliffs Update, which was recently split into two parts and partially delayed.

Today's Minecraft: Java Edition snapshot includes mostly minor fixes and tweaks. There are further changes to the ore distribution and cave generation expected to arrive in the second half of the Caves and Cliffs Update this Winter, with some other minor additions. This is definitely on the more modest side for Minecraft: Java Edition snapshots, but there are definitely still reasons to jump in and play, especially if you're excited about the Caves and Cliffs Update.

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The full changelog for Minecraft: Java Edition Snapshot 21w18a includes:

Caves and Cliffs Update preview

• Download the new datapack
• Reduced Copper spawning a bit, to compensate for large ore veins
• Large ore veins are slightly more rare and slightly smaller on average. But the size varies a lot so you can still find huge ones
• Increased chance of finding raw ore blocks in ore veins
• Cave carvers generate below y 0 in Ocean biomes (they didn't before, it was an accident)
• Increased the minimum size of noodle caves and carvers, to make them easier to traverse and less likely to break up into fragments
• Noodle caves no longer generate above y 30, so the surface should be less riddled with holes
• Removed Deepslate blobs above y 0
• Extended the vertical range of the smaller blobs of iron ore, to make it possible to find iron in caves near the surface
• Slightly reduced the amount of normal-sized iron blobs, to compensate for large ore veins and the increased range of smaller blobs

Bug fixes

• Last use of an anvil causes player to drop their item
• When closing the inventory while holding an item with the cursor in Creative mode, the item disappears
• Old cave and ravine generation gets cut off unnaturally on chunk borders near water
• NativeImage bounds checks are incorrect
• Certain custom biome settings cause game to spam "Received invalid biome id: -1" in the console, causing major lag or freeze
• Adventure mode players can extinguish candles
• No "Burning" sound for items burning in lava cauldron
• Zoglins attack Marker armor stands and Invisible armor stands
• Pufferfish react to Marker armor stands and Invisible armor stands
• Minecraft crashes when loading resource pack due to "tessellating block model"
• Axolotl inconsistently doesn't show its mouth in-game
• Loading in a TrueTypeFont with an out-of-bounds size crashes the game
• Small Dripleaf sometimes shrink into smaller (1 block tall) Big Dripleaf when using bone meal
• Spore Blossoms can be used to breathe underwater / cannot be waterlogged
• Some strips of chunks generate completely dark
• World occasionally fails to load correctly
• Some chunks in a line are lit up constantly
• Extreme world generation lag
• Crash: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Chunk not there when requested
• Game fatally crashed while exploring chunks (IllegalStateException: Accessing PalettedContainer from multiple threads)
• Some chunks occasionally don't save properly, resetting progress
• Goat Babies Don't Follow Parents
• Legs of goats move differently
• Goat eye height is outside of its hitbox while airborne
• Goats can still do high jumps normally when on honey blocks
• Goat head animation is weird when it rides a boat
• Eye position of the goat is too high in some cases, causing suffocation
• UVs on the goat's ears aren't mirrored as they should be
• Piglins aren't attracted to a Block of Raw Gold
• Piglins aren't angered when mining a Block of Raw Gold
• Goats ram Marker armor stands & Invisible armor stands
• Deepslate Tile Stairs come before Deepslate Brick Stairs in the creative inventory
• Deepslate ore map colors are inconsistent with deepslate
• Ramming sound that comes from a baby goat does not change pitch
• When removing water from base of Small Dripleaf, the block stands without water untill a block update
• Mob death does not show death particles
• Raw ore blocks can generate as floating blocks in ore veins