Sorry if this has been covered before, but when biomes are implemented in the game, how will this affect our current worlds?
If for instance your current map is a "good weather" map (no snow)
will you not experience the biomes unless you start a new world from scratch? or will it just retrofit your current world accordingly?
The current generated world you have will not change. This would be the same for any new update that requires blocks to spawn (e.g., a world created before clay was introduced will not have clay).
HOWEVER, if you are to generate new areas (by exploring beyond the boundaries of your current world, any block updates can spawn in the newly generated chunks.
The current generated world you have will not change. This would be the same for any new update that requires blocks to spawn (e.g., a world created before clay was introduced will not have clay).
HOWEVER, if you are to generate new areas (by exploring beyond the boundaries of your current world, any block updates can spawn in the newly generated chunks.
I see.
But what exactly constitutes as "beyond" the boundaries of my world?
Notch has promised to not break the saves, but there's NO official word saying previous worlds will be able to generate biomes in the new chunks (as it's being claimed by many here). Chunks are the blocks in which the world are divided, and they are generated as they are explored. The idea is that only chunks generated after the update will have biomes.
Personally, that seems a little too problematic, from a technical point of view, and it might break things, so he may opt to leave current worlds alone, but you'll need to generate a new one from scratch to get biomes. This is my speculation, I'm basing it on personal experience as a developer and my interpretation of what's going on to implement this feature.
Notch has promised to not break the saves, but there's no official word saying previous worlds will be able to generate biomes in the new chunks (as it's being claimed by many here). Personally, that seems a little too problematic, from a technical point of view, and it might break things, so he may opt to leave current worlds alone, but you'll need to generate a new one from scratch to get biomes.
I hadn't considered that, but you have a point. I sure hope they'll be able to spawn in new chunks.
Notch has promised to not break the saves, but there's NO official word saying previous worlds will be able to generate biomes in the new chunks (as it's being claimed by many here). Chunks are the blocks in which the world are divided, and they are generated as they are explored. The idea is that only chunks generated after the update will have biomes.
Personally, that seems a little too problematic, from a technical point of view, and it might break things, so he may opt to leave current worlds alone, but you'll need to generate a new one from scratch to get biomes. This is my speculation, I'm basing it on personal experience as a developer and my interpretation of what's going on to implement this feature.
Damn I was afraid of that. I've worked so hard on my world I wouldn't want to just scrap it and start from scratch...
To clarify a little more, Notch has mentioned biomes will be based on certain variables such as hot/cold, dry/wet, safe/dangerous. By making these three parameters vary across the topography, he can pick the adequate tiles and behaviors while creating the world data.
Now consider these:
1) In current worlds, there are no such place to store these values
2) Biomes require the rewriting of a portions of the map generator, in the sense that a lot of the terrain code will be tweaked to accept more parameters. This means there would probably be great discontinuities between existing chunks and the newly generated chunks.
3) A newly generated chunk will likely present a very sharp transition from the old grassy plains into a newly implemented biome. This will look awful.
So I think it's likely that it will either look awful or he'll have a flag to "use old generator code" when you're playing in your old save. This way you'll only get biomes in a new world, but previous worlds would work as usual and you'd be able to enjoy the other new features.
You can confirm all these facts I've mentioned on that thread in the red link on my signature. Just search for the keywords.
Quote from cycloidB »
Damn I was afraid of that. I've worked so hard on my world I wouldn't want to just scrap it and start from scratch...
Well, he did warn us to not become attached to our saves. And it's certainly not worth it to him to bend over backwards for backwards compatibility, as the game is still in alpha.
To clarify a little more, Notch has mentioned biomes will be based on certain variables such as hot/cold, dry/wet, safe/dangerous. By making these three parameters vary across the topography, he can pick the adequate tiles and behaviors while creating the world data.
Now consider these:
1) In current worlds, there are no such place to store these values
2) Biomes require the rewriting of a portions of the map generator, in the sense that a lot of the terrain code will be tweaked to accept more parameters. This means there would probably be great discontinuities between existing chunks and the newly generated chunks.
3) A newly generated chunk will likely present a very sharp transition from the old grassy plains into a newly implemented biome. This will look awful.
So I think it's likely that it will either look awful or he'll have a flag to "use old generator code" when you're playing in your old save. This way you'll only get biomes in a new world, but previous worlds would work as usual and you'd be able to enjoy the other new features.
You can confirm all these facts I've mentioned on that thread in the red link on my signature. Just search for the keywords.
Quote from cycloidB »
Damn I was afraid of that. I've worked so hard on my world I wouldn't want to just scrap it and start from scratch...
Well, he did warn us to not become attached to our saves. And it's certainly not worth it to him to bend over backwards for backwards compatibility, as the game is still in alpha.
This is true
I just wish there was some way to bring over what I've done to the biome world.
1) In current worlds, there are no such place to store these values
The NBT TAG_Compound (which the top-level of a Chunk file is) is an association-list with no guaranteed order. Key/value pairs can be added arbitrarily (given no overlapping keys) without disturbing anything already there. If those WERE to be stored here, that would be possible, and if they were missing it could default to as it is now.
See here : http://www.minecraft.net/docs/NBT.txt
However I don't believe storing them would be required. The level.dat file has a random seed that is used for deterministically generating chunks based on their position. Given the random seed and the X and Z coordinate of a chunk, Notch could easily and deterministically get the value for each of those parameters for generating and then properly handling the chunk.
Quote from MrTorus »
2) Biomes require the rewriting of a portions of the map generator, in the sense that a lot of the terrain code will be tweaked to accept more parameters. This means there would probably be great discontinuities between existing chunks and the newly generated chunks.
3) A newly generated chunk will likely present a very sharp transition from the old grassy plains into a newly implemented biome. This will look awful.
These two points are the same. But anyway, yes. That has happened in the past, from what I have read. This is not a first-hand observation, but I believe in the past with map generator changes, transitioning from chunk to chunk can cause discontinuity if one was generated before and one after the change.
Quote from MrTorus »
So I think it's likely that it will either look awful or he'll have a flag to "use old generator code" when you're playing in your old save. This way you'll only get biomes in a new world, but previous worlds would work as usual and you'd be able to enjoy the other new features.
That kind of backward compatibility would require extra effort (two terrain generators PLUS extra data on the new chunks saying they are new) and maintenance issues, so I would guess the "look awful" approach between old and new chunks.
But I see no technical reason (from your points) for why old saves shouldn't work.
Now, with the extra-dimensional space which can be built in, that gets interesting. But then again, he can just add another entry to the a-list, with 1/(4*4*4) as many bytes or whatever for storing the hell-built blocks. If that entry is missing, then just generate an empty (or default) one when loaded. Still pretty simple. (Sorry, thinking as I type).
Well if you read the Minecraft.net front page it says
The main branch of the game is currently called "Minecraft Alpha", and is under heavy development. It can be a bit unstable at times, so don't get too attached to your save files yet.
You can read more on the development blog, or here.
It does say that because minecraft is "unstable" but the game is in alpha. I strongly believe that becoming attached to your save files is incredibly dumb at this point as Notch can take the game in any direction. Therefore possibly making any save file not correspond to the features of the newest updates.
The current generated world you have will not change. This would be the same for any new update that requires blocks to spawn (e.g., a world created before clay was introduced will not have clay).
HOWEVER, if you are to generate new areas (by exploring beyond the boundaries of your current world, any block updates can spawn in the newly generated chunks.
I see.
But what exactly constitutes as "beyond" the boundaries of my world?
Beyond your explored chunks?
I have no idea what could happen with our worlds when the update does come out.
Better hope we still can use our worlds we have now.
Most likely, you'll just have to make a new world, no problem for me really. I've got two worlds, a snowy one with a cave house and an igloo, with very little resources or exploration, and a slightly larger one, with a small house in an enlarged cave, on a mountain, accessable via waterfall (Very stylish in summer). That's the one I got zombie horded on... Reminds me of L4D, but with more excessive spawning. I'm afraid I'll get lost if I go exploring... So I'd just make a new world if I wanted too, or I'd go on SMP, that'd have a new map at the time.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I can't stop playing Destiny. Someone raid with me damn it.
If for instance your current map is a "good weather" map (no snow)
will you not experience the biomes unless you start a new world from scratch? or will it just retrofit your current world accordingly?
A little confused on this. Thanks!
HOWEVER, if you are to generate new areas (by exploring beyond the boundaries of your current world, any block updates can spawn in the newly generated chunks.
I see.
But what exactly constitutes as "beyond" the boundaries of my world?
Notch has promised to not break the saves, but there's NO official word saying previous worlds will be able to generate biomes in the new chunks (as it's being claimed by many here). Chunks are the blocks in which the world are divided, and they are generated as they are explored. The idea is that only chunks generated after the update will have biomes.
Personally, that seems a little too problematic, from a technical point of view, and it might break things, so he may opt to leave current worlds alone, but you'll need to generate a new one from scratch to get biomes. This is my speculation, I'm basing it on personal experience as a developer and my interpretation of what's going on to implement this feature.
MINECRAFT FACTS: BIG LIST OF WHAT NOTCH HAS ACTUALLY SAID ABOUT THE PLANNED FEATURES OF MINECRAFT
I hadn't considered that, but you have a point. I sure hope they'll be able to spawn in new chunks.
Damn I was afraid of that. I've worked so hard on my world I wouldn't want to just scrap it and start from scratch...
Now consider these:
1) In current worlds, there are no such place to store these values
2) Biomes require the rewriting of a portions of the map generator, in the sense that a lot of the terrain code will be tweaked to accept more parameters. This means there would probably be great discontinuities between existing chunks and the newly generated chunks.
3) A newly generated chunk will likely present a very sharp transition from the old grassy plains into a newly implemented biome. This will look awful.
So I think it's likely that it will either look awful or he'll have a flag to "use old generator code" when you're playing in your old save. This way you'll only get biomes in a new world, but previous worlds would work as usual and you'd be able to enjoy the other new features.
You can confirm all these facts I've mentioned on that thread in the red link on my signature. Just search for the keywords.
Well, he did warn us to not become attached to our saves. And it's certainly not worth it to him to bend over backwards for backwards compatibility, as the game is still in alpha.
MINECRAFT FACTS: BIG LIST OF WHAT NOTCH HAS ACTUALLY SAID ABOUT THE PLANNED FEATURES OF MINECRAFT
This is true
I just wish there was some way to bring over what I've done to the biome world.
The NBT TAG_Compound (which the top-level of a Chunk file is) is an association-list with no guaranteed order. Key/value pairs can be added arbitrarily (given no overlapping keys) without disturbing anything already there. If those WERE to be stored here, that would be possible, and if they were missing it could default to as it is now.
See here : http://www.minecraft.net/docs/NBT.txt
However I don't believe storing them would be required. The level.dat file has a random seed that is used for deterministically generating chunks based on their position. Given the random seed and the X and Z coordinate of a chunk, Notch could easily and deterministically get the value for each of those parameters for generating and then properly handling the chunk.
These two points are the same. But anyway, yes. That has happened in the past, from what I have read. This is not a first-hand observation, but I believe in the past with map generator changes, transitioning from chunk to chunk can cause discontinuity if one was generated before and one after the change.
That kind of backward compatibility would require extra effort (two terrain generators PLUS extra data on the new chunks saying they are new) and maintenance issues, so I would guess the "look awful" approach between old and new chunks.
But I see no technical reason (from your points) for why old saves shouldn't work.
Now, with the extra-dimensional space which can be built in, that gets interesting. But then again, he can just add another entry to the a-list, with 1/(4*4*4) as many bytes or whatever for storing the hell-built blocks. If that entry is missing, then just generate an empty (or default) one when loaded. Still pretty simple. (Sorry, thinking as I type).
It does say that because minecraft is "unstable" but the game is in alpha. I strongly believe that becoming attached to your save files is incredibly dumb at this point as Notch can take the game in any direction. Therefore possibly making any save file not correspond to the features of the newest updates.
Beyond your explored chunks?
I have no idea what could happen with our worlds when the update does come out.
Better hope we still can use our worlds we have now.