One of my favorite things about Minecraft is observing what the terrain generator can come up with, and imagining uses for these different landscapes. With each update to the terrain generator I have explored and observed dozens of worlds, with recent updates it has been hundreds. There is always room for improvement in what can or should be possible, and some improvements are more needed than others.
There have been many threads related to one or another biome in need of further attention, but with limited time for work on any one aspect of the game, which is/are most in need? Aside from changes to the flora and fauna of biomes, which general features of the terrain/map generator are most in need of fine tuning or being altogether updated?
For the biomes most in need of attention I would list the top three as:
Ocean: I am pleased that we now have a proper Ocean biome, but it is severely lacking in content.
Basic flora and fauna need to be added such as Kelp and Crabs.
Some secondary flora and fauna, Coral (superfluous but colorful) (put sponges back in?), and Jellyfish (a slow but dangerous "predator").
An excellent location for another adventure location, such as shipwrecks (since villages or strongholds may be innapropriate)( but this can wait for later).
Swamp: It is a biome type that was needed, and has recieved moderate development, some features need to be tweaked.
Transitions here were obviously in need of fixing.
A new tree type might be more appropriate than just recoloring (a lower priority).
Passive mobs seem out of place in a swamp.
Mushroom: Is an amusing new rare biome with unique features, it needs minor touch-ups.
A secondary type of foliage might be needed, perhaps even a second animal type, both fairly low priority.
From most to least important, the major issues I have with how the world is made (aside of bleak Oceans) are predominantly in the general terrain features:
Topography Variation: most biomes appears to be sculpted with very little variation in their topography.
Some features need this strict restriction, such as the river transition, and to some extent the Swamp biome. Most do not.
The Mountain biome should be the extreme, stony barren heights under high erosion. However, other biomes, particularly the forests and desert, should be capable of being extremely hilly as well as flat - they are currently only flat - they used to exhibit extreme heights and should do so again.
Vertical Limit: the Y limit of Minecraft is miniscule compared to its horizontal axes.
There is so much potential for Minecraft with a more realistic vertical limit, both in providing a proper canvas/sandbox for sculptors and builders, as well as in rendering lifelike landscapes.
I'll provide some numbers to put this in perspective:
Compare the Vertical limit of Minecraft (comparing the 64 blocks above sea level):
Sears Tower, 442m tall, tallest skyscraper in North America, (6.9*Minecraft).
Burj Khalifa, 828m tall, tallest manmade structure on Earth, (12.9*Minecraft).
Mont Blanc, 4,810m tall, highest mt. in the Alps, (75.2*Minecraft).
Mount Elbert, 4,401m tall, highest mt. in the Rockies, (68.8*Minecraft).
Mount Everest, 8,848m tall, highest mountain on Earth, (138.3*Minecraft).
Olympus Mons, 22km tall, highest known mountain in our solar system, (344*Minecraft). To the Horizontal Limit of Minecraft:
Minecraft X*Z covers an area of 576 million square kilometers of world.
Earth has a surface area of 510 million square kilometers.
While I think the payoff for increasing the vertical limit of Minecraft would be immense, I sadly do not expect this great improvement to actually happen, even though it should be a much greater priority than the folks at Mojang give it.
Weather: similar to the topographical variation, I think the distribution of snow:rain should be greatly changed.
The type of precipitation should have little to do with the terrain/biome. Perhaps none given the present array of biomes. Snowfall should be possible in any biome, with higher probability in some such as Mountain or Pine Forest.
Only Tropical Forest biome, which I am not certain exists anymore, should be excluded from the possibility of snowfall.
The sad current state of things are that only one biome exhibits snow, and does so 100% of the time. This biome should not exist at all, being nothing more than Plains with permafrost.
Tree Density: a similar problem to that above, treecover density should be more variant within any type of biome.
The placement of trees should be a varaible with great scale. Forests of all types should exhibit variation in the range of tree-tree proximity.
Secondary foliage (tallgrass, ferns, flowers) could have density countering that of the trees.
Biome Types: some have been lost that should come back, one or two we have now are unnecessary (if some of the above changes are implemented).
The current snow biome is unnecessary if better weather mechanics are implemented.
The current "Extreme Hills" biome could be replaced with a Mountain biome that exibits steep rocky snow capped peaks - if proper topographical variation is introduced to other biomes.
The Tropical Forest could be brought back into the current array of 9 biomes with the elimination of the redundant "snow" biome we currently have.
Better yet, we could have an array of 16 biomes instead of 9, making room for additional realistic or fantastic biomes.
*ps*
An additional excellent idea that cromlathe brought up was additional diversity in some of the biome categories. For example, we have already experienced several distinct types of forests (arboreal biomes). That kind of diversity could be applied to arid biomes to give us several kinds of deserts, as well as wetland biomes and oceanic biomes.
Quote from Dragonid »
They could be divided into these groups within their type: Arid: having three major distictions.
Dunes: being very much like the Desert we have now, with predominantly Sand covering the ground with perhaps a layer of Gravel under it, sparse Dead Bushes, and uncommon Cactus. No dirt or trees, except perhaps adjacent to rare oases.
This type of arid biome is reminiscent of cliche deserts, and the Sahara or Arabian deserts.
Rocky: would predominantly have Gravel cover followed by Stone and Sand in amounts roughly equal to one another - there could be a wide variance in the density of Cactus and Dead Bushes - trees would be uncommon.
This type of desert would be much like the GreatBasin of the southwestern US or parts of mostother deserts.
Verdant: representing those deserts and arid regions that are covered in foliage adapted to low precipitation - a mix of Sand, Gravel and Grass - dense Cactus, moderate Tallgrass and Dead Bushes, occasional trees.
Swamp: much as we have it today, with greater variation in tree density ranging upward from what we presently have.
Marsh: predominantly full of reeds / cattails, a variation on Sugarcane mechanics that grows in the shallow waters (1-2 deep) up to 3-4 blocks above water level, and is generally devoid of trees.
Having a set of oceanic biomes, rather than just one Ocean biome, would be very nice. Oceans being entirely barren and in need of some kind of content probably distracted me from the idea that was brought up earlier about desert and wetland diversity being applied to oceans as well. The oceans we have now are temperate, ocean diversity would be nice (in the same way that we have arboreal diversity with several kinds of forest).
There could be the temperate oceans we have, plus an 'arctic' variety with icebergs polar bears and walruses, and the one that I think a lot of people look forward to, tropical ocean, with corals and abundant small sealife like crabs, jellyfish, and all manner of little colorful fishes.
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More Ocean Life: Kelp, Coral, Crabs and Jellyfish; Coconut Palm trees for beaches and islands. Terrain Generation Changes: Which biomes and world-building features are most in need of change?
Main things with terrain generations I'd like are:
More Biomes:
-Rainforests, with dense tree cover and much thicker dirt layer (instead of 3-4 deep, it'd be like 10-20 dirt blocks deep)
-Barren landscapes, dirt without grass, exposed smoothstone, trees without leaves
-Sandy Beaches as a biome, edges connecting to land biomes would be mostly sand, edges connecting to ocean biomes would be semi deep water, with small islands in the middle with occasional palm trees
-Gravel Beaches, like sandy beaches but more rocky outcrops and ship wreck debris
-Mountain chains that generate like rivers or ravines, basically long snakey mountain chain without dirt on them, but with snow blocks on the top with occasional ice blocks and some streams pouring down
-Savannah, mostly grass with occasional lone trees
-Volcano biome, with a big central mountain filled with lava from the top all the way down to the bottom of the map, the landscape around it being like barren landscape, but with occasional pools of lava and natural obsidian
-Strongholds as biomes, with ruins on the surface so you know when you're above one
-Plateau biome, with a large landmass that's generally fairly flat but high above sea level
-Canyon biome, with some parts below sea level that aren't filled with water
-More rare fantasy type biomes, like crystal caves
I'd also like to see more variation in the underground for each biome, like snow and ice block deposits under snow biomes, thicker dirt layers in biomes with more vegetation, much thicker sandstone layer in deserts, more of some types of ores under some biomes and sometimes ore deposits above ground in some biomes (like finding lapis near sky level on a mountain chain).
I like swamp biomes atm because they're fairly distinct, tho I'd like them more if those willow trees or whatever they are were their own tree type, with their own wood and saplings.
About weather, the main change I'd like is for rain to cause new trees to grow near other trees, and for rain to cause grass to grow.
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Evidence suggests that many people quote posts without reading them in their entirety.
Still no infinite strongholds D:
I'm mostly worried about the oceans right now. First of all, I barely even see any beaches. Secondly, I don't like how the ocean floor looks. By that I mean how it is covered in random circles. Lastly, there needs to be some reason for crossing oceans, maybe tiny islands with treasure chests on them.
I really agree with everything said in this post. I would like some of the old biomes back too (maybe jungle, savannah), I find it a little too predictable sometimes with the average forest and mountain biome.
I'm a bit surprised to see so many votes in favor of "all biomes need significant updates." I'll take that to mean the weather and topographical changes that would apply to all biomes as a general improvement.
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More Ocean Life: Kelp, Coral, Crabs and Jellyfish; Coconut Palm trees for beaches and islands. Terrain Generation Changes: Which biomes and world-building features are most in need of change?
For the people favoring biome-biome transitions as the terrain feature most in need of improvement, are you just considering the current Swamp issue, or is it a more broad issue of needing a greater distance for all transition to take place over? I know there are some complaints, particularly related to deserts, which generally go along the lines of perceiving abrupt transitions into/out of desert as especially aesthetically displeasing.
I don't see this as much of an issue for other biomes. With the forests, if the variation in tree density that I suggested were implemented, transitions out of forest could easily be perceived as part of the natural variation within the biome. Plains must certainly be the easiest transition to make, though foliage coloration can be easily detected. Ocean could use a bit more of a border in transitions, this would solve some of the percieved loss of beaches if Ocean transitions were rich in Sand/Gravel (and give a place for some Coconut Palm trees to grow).
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More Ocean Life: Kelp, Coral, Crabs and Jellyfish; Coconut Palm trees for beaches and islands. Terrain Generation Changes: Which biomes and world-building features are most in need of change?
In my world, recently upgraded from 1.8 to 1.9 prerelease 3, there are no snow biomes. I've gone many kilometers in all directions and it's all pine, swamp, desert, plains and mountain biomes. Anyone else from 1.8 have this problem?
Also, ocean biome borders have a pretty hard cut borders sometimes, which make it look edited.
I actually preferred the terrain generator before 1.8 much more than the current one. There was much more variation and "beautiful" terrain in the old generator. With the new one, I am either in a flat forest, a pointlessly huge and treeless mountain biome, a flat and bland snow biome, or a dark and ugly swamp biome. There is no variation. I think the main problem as mentioned before is that there needs to still be hills and mountains in all of the other biomes. Everything is WAY to flat and completely boring now. I am most likely going to downgrade my minecraft to the old generator simply because it is much more fun to be in. I am very disappointed with the recent updates mainly because of this problem.
In my world, recently upgraded from 1.8 to 1.9 prerelease 3, there are no snow biomes. I've gone many kilometers in all directions and it's all pine, swamp, desert, plains and mountain biomes. Anyone else from 1.8 have this problem?
Also, ocean biome borders have a pretty hard cut borders sometimes, which make it look edited.
I've found no snow biomes in the Creative mode of 1.9.3 after several hours of map searching. It would be great to see them in mountainous areas where it would be appropriate, given the altitude!
Snow fall can be a very nice feature when building, especially in mountainous areas, would hate to see it removed from the creative mode.
Exploring is what I like to do the most and it's become rather predictable and boring, everything looking more or less the same. I really hope Notch & Jeb will take the time to finish this up properly.
Well, my own personal take on this will put me in the minority, but here goes:
Biomes did need to be larger, but I feel that they got carried away and made them too large. What needed to be done was to bump up the minimum size possible so that tiny biomes no longer appeared. Then bump up the max size to about four times what it was in 1.7.3 - that would have provided some fairly large biomes, but would have allowed for variations in size instead of the current uniformity we see in virtually all biomes.
Mountains should appear randomly in any biome except plains, swamps, savannah and tundra biomes. Those are typically flat with ranges of minor hills to give them a small degree of variation.
They should have at least two types of mountain generation. High mountains that exceed a natural tree line (for this, we REALLY should have a world depth default of 256 from bedrock to sky limit) that have exposed stone for peaks - with snow above the tree line. And not quite as high, older mountains that have lost their jagged peaks and are tree covered, and typically do not exceed the tree line. These should NOT be specific to any biome type. Mountains appear in most biome types: forest, hill, jungle, mountain, rainforest, volcano, alpine, desert, etc.
There should be two types of desert biome. Deserts naturally appear on earth as barren and sandy, or verdant but arid regions. Verdant deserts have lots of plant life in them: mesquite trees, palo verde trees, sajuaro cactus, creosote bushes (chaparral), etc. The soil in a verdant desert is not sand, nor should it be the current soil texture. It should be a lighter colored soil that does not grow green grass on it. In verdant deserts, grass is patchy, and usually yellow or brown.
Ocean biomes need to be fairly large, but I don't see a need or use for anything more than about 1000 blocks across. You can build an enormous city in an area that is 1000 x 1000 blocks. Anything larger just takes too dang long to cross.
I agree with everyone that ocean biomes need content. I love some of the ideas I see presented here.
The most important thing I would like to express is that biomes are too restrictive right now. They are not allowed to bleed together with mixed / and sometimes amazing results. There is much less variety in our worlds now, and that has diminished Minecraft in unfortunate ways. So while I like the current larger biomes, and inclusion of the new swamp and shroom biomes, I still prefer the older 1.7.3 terrain generator because it provided lots of variety and often accidentally produced some fantastic mixed biomes.
I would also like to see potential new biomes added: rainforest, marshland, savanna, verdant desert, volcanic, steppes, plateau (tapui), great forest (bigger, thicker trees with trunks four blocks around), beaches, etc.
I would also like to see the addition of some fantasy biomes. In the MMO Lord of the Rings Online there is a place called Ered Luin with a mix of green and violet trees. Very pretty. It would be nice if Notch would give us a bit of RARE variety - things like purple flowers that occur less often in the world. Or a special bush type that is a sprite like the flowers. A bit more bush / shrub plant life to enhance the world with.
The game is in pretty severe need of ALPINE biomes. These are mountainous, but the mountains typically do not exceed the natural tree line, and they also typically do not have deep valleys that go below the snow line. These would be snow covered all the time, and precipitation would be in the form of snow.
I would like to see two levels of rainfall. The current heavy rainfall and a much lesser "drizzle" kind of rainfall. Variety. Snowfall would vary between light snowfall and heavy snowfall.
Another problem with world generation is the fauna in biomes. Goats would make a great domestic animal addition and should spawn in hilly or mountainous biomes. Bears spawning in woods and forests. A cat species for jungles and swamps. Fireflies in swamps and marshlands. Come to think of it, I think that is where notch went wrong. He tried to distinquish biomes by makes them very restrictive. He could have distinguished them with spawns.
This is a great thread. Best one I've read on these forums. Nice to see for a change that no one is calling everyone else stupid or spewing childish profanity and insults. Good work folks!
IMO the critical biome changes are those that affect terrain generation:
Beaches We lost them and they should come back.
Mines: They are too messy. They need to be generated so that they connect cleanly.
Combination of mines + ravines + cave systems. They currently perforate the world too much, interfering with orderly mining techniques. A simple solution would be too keep them at levels 14 and up:
That would give plenty of "hot resources" for the spelunkers,
while leaving levels 6-13 for those that prefer orderly mining methods.
Of course, after the changes that affect terrain generation focus should go to filling in the biomes that are currently "too empty". We need more passive mobs for oceans and desert biomes.
Also, we need an improvement for underwater work:
In 1.7 it was possible, since when you run out of air you took damage but still had the ability to get to a safe place.
Since 1.8 once you run out of air you are virtually locked in place, which virtually killed underwater work. Some way to restore semi-safe underwater work (besides using a mod) should be implemented.
Biomes did need to be larger, but I feel that they got carried away and made them too large. What needed to be done was to bump up the minimum size possible so that tiny biomes no longer appeared. Then bump up the max size to about four times what it was in 1.7.3 - that would have provided some fairly large biomes, but would have allowed for variations in size instead of the current uniformity we see in virtually all biomes.
While I personally prefer the size of biomes we have now, I would agree that more variation in size could be better. The older (<1.8) biomes were a bit too reminiscent of Pandemonium, and altogether made transitions impossible I would have to say though.
They should have at least two types of mountain generation. High mountains that exceed a natural tree line (for this, we REALLY should have a world depth default of 256 from bedrock to sky limit) that have exposed stone for peaks - with snow above the tree line. And not quite as high, older mountains that have lost their jagged peaks and are tree covered, and typically do not exceed the tree line. These should NOT be specific to any biome type. Mountains appear in most biome types: forest, hill, jungle, mountain, rainforest, volcano, alpine, desert, etc.
I completely agree with that sentiment. I miss our old mountains, they were much more visually appealing as well as realistic in their varaition, though they were still missing rocky snow covered peaks. There are a variety of ways to approach increasing the vertical limit to make this, and other things, possible. I won't claim to be a programming genius and say which approach is best, but I hope that Noch & co. will take the time to make it happen in the near future.
There should be two types of desert biome. Deserts naturally appear on earth as barren and sandy, or verdant but arid regions. Verdant deserts have lots of plant life in them: mesquite trees, palo verde trees, sajuaro cactus, creosote bushes (chaparral), etc. The soil in a verdant desert is not sand, nor should it be the current soil texture. It should be a lighter colored soil that does not grow green grass on it. In verdant deserts, grass is patchy, and usually yellow or brown.
If the array of biomes was increased from the current set of 9, I'd like to see 2-3 types of arid and 2-3 types of wetland biomes. We have three different kinds of forests, I can hardly think that arid and wetland terrains deserve less diversity than arboreal ones. This could clear up much of the contention around the subject of what belongs in a Desert or Swamp biome.
They could be divided into these groups within their type: Arid: having three major distictions.
Dunes: being very much like the Desert we have now, with predominantly Sand covering the ground with perhaps a layer of Gravel under it, sparse Dead Bushes, and uncommon Cactus. No dirt or trees, except perhaps adjacent to rare oases.
This type of arid biome is reminiscent of cliche deserts, and the Sahara or Arabian deserts.
Rocky: would predominantly have Gravel cover followed by Stone and Sand in amounts roughly equal to one another - there could be a wide variance in the density of Cactus and Dead Bushes - trees would be uncommon.
This type of desert would be much like the GreatBasin of the southwestern US or parts of mostother deserts.
Verdant: representing those deserts and arid regions that are covered in foliage adapted to low precipitation - a mix of Sand, Gravel and Grass - dense Cactus, moderate Tallgrass and Dead Bushes, occasional trees.
Swamp: much as we have it today, with greater variation in tree density ranging upward from what we presently have.
Marsh: predominantly full of reeds / cattails, a variation on Sugarcane mechanics that grows in the shallow waters (1-2 deep) up to 3-4 blocks above water level, and is generally devoid of trees.
Ocean biomes need to be fairly large, but I don't see a need or use for anything more than about 1000 blocks across. You can build an enormous city in an area that is 1000 x 1000 blocks. Anything larger just takes too dang long to cross.
While I think that many people complaining about the size of Oceans (a repeating Ocean-Ocean biome pattern) greatly exagerate the area they cover, having them cover an area larger than an in game Map (64 chunks square) is probably about as large as they need to be. I don't think they are often much larger than this now, from the large number of them that I have observed (approx 6 in 250 seeds have had an ocean near the spawn with dimensions near 2km). I don't think there is much need for reducing their potential.
Another problem with world generation is the fauna in biomes. Goats would make a great domestic animal addition and should spawn in hilly or mountainous biomes. Bears spawning in woods and forests. A cat species for jungles and swamps. Fireflies in swamps and marshlands. Come to think of it, I think that is where notch went wrong. He tried to distinquish biomes by makes them very restrictive. He could have distinguished them with spawns.
This is a great thread. Best one I've read on these forums. Nice to see for a change that no one is calling everyone else stupid or spewing childish profanity and insults. Good work folks!
I would agree that there is much room for expansion in the diversity of fauna. Though I don't think there is much call for more domesticated species. I'm fond of the idea of Crocodiles for wetlands, Bears for forests, and as previously mentioned Crabs and Jellyfish for Oceans.
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More Ocean Life: Kelp, Coral, Crabs and Jellyfish; Coconut Palm trees for beaches and islands. Terrain Generation Changes: Which biomes and world-building features are most in need of change?
This is an amazing thread, and I can't really contribute something, but let me throw a picture in:
...
Both mountains and trees, and green grass, too. That's the kind of stuff I miss.
Your picture is an excellent example of some of the topographical variation that we lost. I think the forests have become more dense as well, and people miss the meadows.
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More Ocean Life: Kelp, Coral, Crabs and Jellyfish; Coconut Palm trees for beaches and islands. Terrain Generation Changes: Which biomes and world-building features are most in need of change?
I really think that each biome could use a unique, original agressive mob to flesh it out a bit. Oceans need some aquatic plants/animals, swamps could have a troll of some sort, tundras could have a big bear, deserts could have a huge tunneling worm, etc. I think it would help to flesh out the biomes and make them uniquely dangerous. It's important that biomes not just look different but pose different challenges in survival as well.
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Please learn how to use google. My grandfather knows how to, I think you can too.
For the people voting Biome Types as most important or in need of updates, which specific biomes do you feel are missing or ought to be removed? Is it the greater variation of arid and wetlands discussed above, the loss of Jungle or Savannah, or Mushroom being too fantastic/out of place?
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More Ocean Life: Kelp, Coral, Crabs and Jellyfish; Coconut Palm trees for beaches and islands. Terrain Generation Changes: Which biomes and world-building features are most in need of change?
There have been many threads related to one or another biome in need of further attention, but with limited time for work on any one aspect of the game, which is/are most in need? Aside from changes to the flora and fauna of biomes, which general features of the terrain/map generator are most in need of fine tuning or being altogether updated?
For the biomes most in need of attention I would list the top three as:
From most to least important, the major issues I have with how the world is made (aside of bleak Oceans) are predominantly in the general terrain features:
Sears Tower, 442m tall, tallest skyscraper in North America, (6.9*Minecraft).
Burj Khalifa, 828m tall, tallest manmade structure on Earth, (12.9*Minecraft).
Mont Blanc, 4,810m tall, highest mt. in the Alps, (75.2*Minecraft).
Mount Elbert, 4,401m tall, highest mt. in the Rockies, (68.8*Minecraft).
Mount Everest, 8,848m tall, highest mountain on Earth, (138.3*Minecraft).
Olympus Mons, 22km tall, highest known mountain in our solar system, (344*Minecraft).
To the Horizontal Limit of Minecraft:
Minecraft X*Z covers an area of 576 million square kilometers of world.
Earth has a surface area of 510 million square kilometers.
*ps*
An additional excellent idea that cromlathe brought up was additional diversity in some of the biome categories. For example, we have already experienced several distinct types of forests (arboreal biomes). That kind of diversity could be applied to arid biomes to give us several kinds of deserts, as well as wetland biomes and oceanic biomes.
Terrain Generation Changes: Which biomes and world-building features are most in need of change?
More Biomes:
-Rainforests, with dense tree cover and much thicker dirt layer (instead of 3-4 deep, it'd be like 10-20 dirt blocks deep)
-Barren landscapes, dirt without grass, exposed smoothstone, trees without leaves
-Sandy Beaches as a biome, edges connecting to land biomes would be mostly sand, edges connecting to ocean biomes would be semi deep water, with small islands in the middle with occasional palm trees
-Gravel Beaches, like sandy beaches but more rocky outcrops and ship wreck debris
-Mountain chains that generate like rivers or ravines, basically long snakey mountain chain without dirt on them, but with snow blocks on the top with occasional ice blocks and some streams pouring down
-Savannah, mostly grass with occasional lone trees
-Volcano biome, with a big central mountain filled with lava from the top all the way down to the bottom of the map, the landscape around it being like barren landscape, but with occasional pools of lava and natural obsidian
-Strongholds as biomes, with ruins on the surface so you know when you're above one
-Plateau biome, with a large landmass that's generally fairly flat but high above sea level
-Canyon biome, with some parts below sea level that aren't filled with water
-More rare fantasy type biomes, like crystal caves
I'd also like to see more variation in the underground for each biome, like snow and ice block deposits under snow biomes, thicker dirt layers in biomes with more vegetation, much thicker sandstone layer in deserts, more of some types of ores under some biomes and sometimes ore deposits above ground in some biomes (like finding lapis near sky level on a mountain chain).
I like swamp biomes atm because they're fairly distinct, tho I'd like them more if those willow trees or whatever they are were their own tree type, with their own wood and saplings.
About weather, the main change I'd like is for rain to cause new trees to grow near other trees, and for rain to cause grass to grow.
Still no infinite strongholds D:
Good show.
Terrain Generation Changes: Which biomes and world-building features are most in need of change?
I don't see this as much of an issue for other biomes. With the forests, if the variation in tree density that I suggested were implemented, transitions out of forest could easily be perceived as part of the natural variation within the biome. Plains must certainly be the easiest transition to make, though foliage coloration can be easily detected. Ocean could use a bit more of a border in transitions, this would solve some of the percieved loss of beaches if Ocean transitions were rich in Sand/Gravel (and give a place for some Coconut Palm trees to grow).
Terrain Generation Changes: Which biomes and world-building features are most in need of change?
Also, ocean biome borders have a pretty hard cut borders sometimes, which make it look edited.
I've found no snow biomes in the Creative mode of 1.9.3 after several hours of map searching. It would be great to see them in mountainous areas where it would be appropriate, given the altitude!
Snow fall can be a very nice feature when building, especially in mountainous areas, would hate to see it removed from the creative mode.
Exploring is what I like to do the most and it's become rather predictable and boring, everything looking more or less the same. I really hope Notch & Jeb will take the time to finish this up properly.
Biomes did need to be larger, but I feel that they got carried away and made them too large. What needed to be done was to bump up the minimum size possible so that tiny biomes no longer appeared. Then bump up the max size to about four times what it was in 1.7.3 - that would have provided some fairly large biomes, but would have allowed for variations in size instead of the current uniformity we see in virtually all biomes.
Mountains should appear randomly in any biome except plains, swamps, savannah and tundra biomes. Those are typically flat with ranges of minor hills to give them a small degree of variation.
They should have at least two types of mountain generation. High mountains that exceed a natural tree line (for this, we REALLY should have a world depth default of 256 from bedrock to sky limit) that have exposed stone for peaks - with snow above the tree line. And not quite as high, older mountains that have lost their jagged peaks and are tree covered, and typically do not exceed the tree line. These should NOT be specific to any biome type. Mountains appear in most biome types: forest, hill, jungle, mountain, rainforest, volcano, alpine, desert, etc.
There should be two types of desert biome. Deserts naturally appear on earth as barren and sandy, or verdant but arid regions. Verdant deserts have lots of plant life in them: mesquite trees, palo verde trees, sajuaro cactus, creosote bushes (chaparral), etc. The soil in a verdant desert is not sand, nor should it be the current soil texture. It should be a lighter colored soil that does not grow green grass on it. In verdant deserts, grass is patchy, and usually yellow or brown.
Ocean biomes need to be fairly large, but I don't see a need or use for anything more than about 1000 blocks across. You can build an enormous city in an area that is 1000 x 1000 blocks. Anything larger just takes too dang long to cross.
I agree with everyone that ocean biomes need content. I love some of the ideas I see presented here.
The most important thing I would like to express is that biomes are too restrictive right now. They are not allowed to bleed together with mixed / and sometimes amazing results. There is much less variety in our worlds now, and that has diminished Minecraft in unfortunate ways. So while I like the current larger biomes, and inclusion of the new swamp and shroom biomes, I still prefer the older 1.7.3 terrain generator because it provided lots of variety and often accidentally produced some fantastic mixed biomes.
I would also like to see potential new biomes added: rainforest, marshland, savanna, verdant desert, volcanic, steppes, plateau (tapui), great forest (bigger, thicker trees with trunks four blocks around), beaches, etc.
I would also like to see the addition of some fantasy biomes. In the MMO Lord of the Rings Online there is a place called Ered Luin with a mix of green and violet trees. Very pretty. It would be nice if Notch would give us a bit of RARE variety - things like purple flowers that occur less often in the world. Or a special bush type that is a sprite like the flowers. A bit more bush / shrub plant life to enhance the world with.
The game is in pretty severe need of ALPINE biomes. These are mountainous, but the mountains typically do not exceed the natural tree line, and they also typically do not have deep valleys that go below the snow line. These would be snow covered all the time, and precipitation would be in the form of snow.
I would like to see two levels of rainfall. The current heavy rainfall and a much lesser "drizzle" kind of rainfall. Variety. Snowfall would vary between light snowfall and heavy snowfall.
Another problem with world generation is the fauna in biomes. Goats would make a great domestic animal addition and should spawn in hilly or mountainous biomes. Bears spawning in woods and forests. A cat species for jungles and swamps. Fireflies in swamps and marshlands. Come to think of it, I think that is where notch went wrong. He tried to distinquish biomes by makes them very restrictive. He could have distinguished them with spawns.
This is a great thread. Best one I've read on these forums. Nice to see for a change that no one is calling everyone else stupid or spewing childish profanity and insults. Good work folks!
Also, we need an improvement for underwater work:
While I personally prefer the size of biomes we have now, I would agree that more variation in size could be better. The older (<1.8) biomes were a bit too reminiscent of Pandemonium, and altogether made transitions impossible I would have to say though.
I completely agree with that sentiment. I miss our old mountains, they were much more visually appealing as well as realistic in their varaition, though they were still missing rocky snow covered peaks. There are a variety of ways to approach increasing the vertical limit to make this, and other things, possible. I won't claim to be a programming genius and say which approach is best, but I hope that Noch & co. will take the time to make it happen in the near future.
If the array of biomes was increased from the current set of 9, I'd like to see 2-3 types of arid and 2-3 types of wetland biomes. We have three different kinds of forests, I can hardly think that arid and wetland terrains deserve less diversity than arboreal ones. This could clear up much of the contention around the subject of what belongs in a Desert or Swamp biome.
They could be divided into these groups within their type:
Arid: having three major distictions.
Wetland: having two major disticntions.
While I think that many people complaining about the size of Oceans (a repeating Ocean-Ocean biome pattern) greatly exagerate the area they cover, having them cover an area larger than an in game Map (64 chunks square) is probably about as large as they need to be. I don't think they are often much larger than this now, from the large number of them that I have observed (approx 6 in 250 seeds have had an ocean near the spawn with dimensions near 2km). I don't think there is much need for reducing their potential.
I would agree that there is much room for expansion in the diversity of fauna. Though I don't think there is much call for more domesticated species. I'm fond of the idea of Crocodiles for wetlands, Bears for forests, and as previously mentioned Crabs and Jellyfish for Oceans.
Terrain Generation Changes: Which biomes and world-building features are most in need of change?
Your picture is an excellent example of some of the topographical variation that we lost. I think the forests have become more dense as well, and people miss the meadows.
Terrain Generation Changes: Which biomes and world-building features are most in need of change?
Latest MC video (forum link): http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/show-your-creation/videos/lets-plays/2390805
Terrain Generation Changes: Which biomes and world-building features are most in need of change?