FALL UPDATE: MINECRAFT CONFIRMS BETTER ANIMATIONS, BUFFED BOATS + NEW LOCATOR BAR WAYPOINTS?!

Mojang is already looking beyond the recent Chaos Cubed update, with upcoming changes focused on improving boats, projectiles, the locator bar, and animations. The boat system, while significantly better than older versions, still has a common annoyance where players sometimes land on top of it when exiting, leading to movement issues. This bug is being addressed. Mojang's developers have been busy with 34 bug fixes immediately following the Chaos Cubed release, a massive number suggesting they’ve already moved on to a "popular update" and are polishing the game. Boats are a major focus for these fixes, addressing inconsistencies like boats launched by slime blocks or those stopping abruptly on ice. These fixes might relate to the next update's new "popular forest" surface biome, making exploration easier. Another ancient bug being fixed involves fishing rods, which often glitch when reeling in items, causing them to teleport or not move at all. This 2017 bug, dating back to version 1.11, is a visual glitch, and its fix, alongside continued work on visuals, suggests a focus on polishing the game's graphical fidelity. A peculiar bug involving single dark oak and pale oak saplings accepting bone meal without growing is also being addressed. This hints at a potential future addition of gigantic, perhaps two-by-two, popular trees, which the community has long desired. Entities losing their custom names when placed or broken is another long-standing bug, present since 1.8. Paintings, for instance, lose their names when picked up after being placed. While Mojang has made entities more data-driven, some, like paintings, still exhibit this glitch. The fourth bug ever reported on Mojira, MC4 from 2012, concerning item drops appearing at the wrong location, is also finally being fixed. This visual glitch causes items to appear to fall off ledges before snapping back, and its resolution marks the fixing of a bug that has existed for the entire duration of many players' Minecraft experience. Projectiles, from bows to crossbows, are receiving significant attention due to their glitchy behavior, such as desyncing from the shooter or bouncing off bounding box edges. These fixes aim to make projectile combat smoother and more reliable. Potions, particularly lingering ones, are also being improved. Currently, lingering potions hitting a player directly don't apply their effect, requiring the player to jump into the lingering cloud. This fix will make potions more effective. Beyond bug fixes, the Bedrock Edition changelog for the Chaos Cubed update reveals significant changes to the "locator bar." The toggle for this bar in multiplayer settings has been replaced with "player waypoints," offering "off" and "everyone" options instead of simple "off" and "on." This renaming and specific phrasing strongly suggest Mojang is developing a "friends" or "party" system, allowing players to see only their friends' locations on the bar, rather than everyone's. There's also speculation about adding single-player functionality, like showing wandering traders or pet locations, or even lodestone markers, to the locator bar. Finally, Mojang is providing more tools for add-on creators, indicating future development focuses. These include improvements to block entities, additions to dimensions (a focus for both Bedrock and Java teams), audio improvements, and crucially, animation improvements. The idea of an animation overhaul, bringing more personality and idle animations to mobs, is highly anticipated, especially given past hints and the popularity of animation-focused resource packs. Snapshots for these updates are expected to begin soon.