I know a lot of people like to go up there via glitches and, like, build Nether roof bases, or to utilize Nether travel without any hiccups, but really, you're not even meant to be up there in the first place. It's literally out of the map. The ender-pearl-ladder glitch has to be patched at some point. I understand people like it, so I think when that day comes, Mojang should inform the playerbase that it's gonna be patched in the next update, and allow players to hurry up and establish portals up there while they still can before the glitch is patched.
What I really don't get is people arguing that the Nether roof makes it easier to create their weird boat-ice travel machines. Like, seriously? Are Minecraft players really that allergic to any challenge at all, that they will literally defend access to out-of-bounds parts of the Nether just so they can have a little bit less interruptions while building their glitchy travel machine? I'm personally a "You shouldn't be able to go out of the map" fan myself.
My solution to this was to treat the Nether ceiling in the same manner as the void - if you go above y=126 (this is only possible if y=127 is not bedrock or the player somehow glitches upward; otherwise, y=128 would also work and be compatible with the crawling mechanic in current versions) while not in Creative mode you'll take void damage and die. I also restricted the spawn range of mobs in the Nether to 1-125 (vanilla only checks if the block is bedrock, which I removed) so even if you could get on the ceiling exploiting it for farms wouldn't work, and farms in general are less effective and harder to set up (each spawn cycle only spawns mobs in 1/4 of chunks for 1/4 the spawn rate per chunk and if the mob count is less than half the mob cap the rate of individual spawn attempts is reduced by a factor of 3 for as little as 1/12 the spawn rate in vanilla, which has no noticeable impact unless you are trying to get mobs to spawn as fast as possible, as with a mob farm, which avoids hitting the mob cap, and mobs only despawn based on horizontal distance so you'd need to spawnproof everything down to the lowest layer no matter how high you are):
// Prevents players from going onto the Nether roof by killing them. y=126 places player's head where
// bedrock is (y=127)
if (this.dimension == -1 && this.boundingBox.minY >= 126.0D && !this.capabilities.isCreativeMode)
{
this.attackEntityFrom(DamageSource.outOfWorld, 4.0F);
}
if (nether)
{
// Fixed to a range of 1-125
y = this.nextInt(125) + 1;
}
// Slows down spawn attempts by a factor of 3 if number of mobs is less than half the cap.
int attempts = (mobCount <= mobCap / 2 ? 4 : 12);
Also, boats traveling ridiculously fast on ice was originally considered to be a bug but at some point somebody at Mojang decided it was a feature (note that the resolution date is 3 years after it was reported), which I disagree with, and as such it doesn't exist in 1.6.4 so I didn't have to do anything to patch it (at the very least, they should only travel slightly faster, similar to other entities; imagine if sprint-jumping on ice let you travel 40 blocks per second (72 on blue ice) and you can see why it should be considered to be a bug).
In addition, bedrock-breaking exploits can easily be patched by simply not allowing anything to replace it, except for a player in Creative mode:
// Bedrock cannot be replaced by any normal means other than players in Creative mode. Always allowed
// client-side to avoid needing to patch additional classes and potential issues with multithreaded access of
// canRemoveBedrock (only set server-side).
if (oldBlock == BlockStates.bedrock && !this.isRemote && !canRemoveBedrock) return false;
(that said, this may be overkill as according to this page the only ways to break bedrock in 1.6.4 were large oak and large jungle trees and naturally generated Nether portals, and I patched the trees and it seems unlikely a Nether portal would generate in the Nether ceiling as the code restricts them to 10 less than the dimension's height; in general, these bugs occur as a result of making flawed assumptions about whether blocks can be replaced, e.g. trees only checked if the space around the trunk was clear and never checked the blocks being replaced when placing logs, including branches; in fact, even the leaves of some trees replaced transparent blocks like torches and half-slabs)
The only argument I see for making places outside the map inaccessible is getting locked out there - which is quite possible but fixable outside hardcore mode. The nether roof used to have vast mushroom spawns which meant if you wanted enough mushrooms going there would be necessary. It also had ambient scary ghast sounds to keep you away heh.
But since there's nothing about the roof that damages the player, my only concern is build height, not that building out of the overworld is possible anyway.
No real argument for mobs or farms.
There is also the possibility you lock yourself out of the nether below based on how you manage portals but that again is fixed by moving far away in the overworld and coming back via the nether.
The nether roof used to have vast mushroom spawns which meant if you wanted enough mushrooms going there would be necessary
I never had any need to that many mushrooms, even as I eat mushroom stew when in the Nether; I just collect whatever I come across (leaving a few so they can respread) and I'd imagine that growing huge mushrooms would be the most efficient way to farm them (they do spread very slowly).
Also, mushrooms on the Nether ceiling was a bug which was originally fixed in 1.4.3, then it came back in 1.7 and the bug report suggests it still happens as they seem to have simply given up on fixing what should be an incredibly simple bugfix (I seem to keep saying this again and again):
Here is code from 1.6.4, which is not affected; note the "(!par1World.provider.hasNoSky || var8 < 127)", which limits them to below y=127 when in a dimension without a sky (Nether and End); my own mod uses separate code to generate mushrooms in the Overworld and Nether with the latter limiting it to below 127 by simply not generating patches that high up, eliminating the need to check each individual block (the vanilla code shown is actually used to generate all types of plants, not just mushrooms):
Interestingly, this is the same line of code from 1.7.10 - they changed 127 to 255, presumably because they did the same in many other places since terrain in the Overworld could now exceed y=127 but in many cases this only caused problems (for example, this is the main reason why dungeons are much rarer since 1.7; even if terrain above y=127 had been made very common it would have very little impact unless the altitude distribution of caves was also changed):
I know a lot of people like to go up there via glitches and, like, build Nether roof bases, or to utilize Nether travel without any hiccups, but really, you're not even meant to be up there in the first place. It's literally out of the map. The ender-pearl-ladder glitch has to be patched at some point. I understand people like it, so I think when that day comes, Mojang should inform the playerbase that it's gonna be patched in the next update, and allow players to hurry up and establish portals up there while they still can before the glitch is patched.
What I really don't get is people arguing that the Nether roof makes it easier to create their weird boat-ice travel machines. Like, seriously? Are Minecraft players really that allergic to any challenge at all, that they will literally defend access to out-of-bounds parts of the Nether just so they can have a little bit less interruptions while building their glitchy travel machine? I'm personally a "You shouldn't be able to go out of the map" fan myself.
My solution to this was to treat the Nether ceiling in the same manner as the void - if you go above y=126 (this is only possible if y=127 is not bedrock or the player somehow glitches upward; otherwise, y=128 would also work and be compatible with the crawling mechanic in current versions) while not in Creative mode you'll take void damage and die. I also restricted the spawn range of mobs in the Nether to 1-125 (vanilla only checks if the block is bedrock, which I removed) so even if you could get on the ceiling exploiting it for farms wouldn't work, and farms in general are less effective and harder to set up (each spawn cycle only spawns mobs in 1/4 of chunks for 1/4 the spawn rate per chunk and if the mob count is less than half the mob cap the rate of individual spawn attempts is reduced by a factor of 3 for as little as 1/12 the spawn rate in vanilla, which has no noticeable impact unless you are trying to get mobs to spawn as fast as possible, as with a mob farm, which avoids hitting the mob cap, and mobs only despawn based on horizontal distance so you'd need to spawnproof everything down to the lowest layer no matter how high you are):
// Prevents players from going onto the Nether roof by killing them. y=126 places player's head where // bedrock is (y=127) if (this.dimension == -1 && this.boundingBox.minY >= 126.0D && !this.capabilities.isCreativeMode) { this.attackEntityFrom(DamageSource.outOfWorld, 4.0F); } if (nether) { // Fixed to a range of 1-125 y = this.nextInt(125) + 1; } // Slows down spawn attempts by a factor of 3 if number of mobs is less than half the cap. int attempts = (mobCount <= mobCap / 2 ? 4 : 12);Also, boats traveling ridiculously fast on ice was originally considered to be a bug but at some point somebody at Mojang decided it was a feature (note that the resolution date is 3 years after it was reported), which I disagree with, and as such it doesn't exist in 1.6.4 so I didn't have to do anything to patch it (at the very least, they should only travel slightly faster, similar to other entities; imagine if sprint-jumping on ice let you travel 40 blocks per second (72 on blue ice) and you can see why it should be considered to be a bug).
In addition, bedrock-breaking exploits can easily be patched by simply not allowing anything to replace it, except for a player in Creative mode:
(that said, this may be overkill as according to this page the only ways to break bedrock in 1.6.4 were large oak and large jungle trees and naturally generated Nether portals, and I patched the trees and it seems unlikely a Nether portal would generate in the Nether ceiling as the code restricts them to 10 less than the dimension's height; in general, these bugs occur as a result of making flawed assumptions about whether blocks can be replaced, e.g. trees only checked if the space around the trunk was clear and never checked the blocks being replaced when placing logs, including branches; in fact, even the leaves of some trees replaced transparent blocks like torches and half-slabs)
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
The only argument I see for making places outside the map inaccessible is getting locked out there - which is quite possible but fixable outside hardcore mode. The nether roof used to have vast mushroom spawns which meant if you wanted enough mushrooms going there would be necessary. It also had ambient scary ghast sounds to keep you away heh.
But since there's nothing about the roof that damages the player, my only concern is build height, not that building out of the overworld is possible anyway.
No real argument for mobs or farms.
There is also the possibility you lock yourself out of the nether below based on how you manage portals but that again is fixed by moving far away in the overworld and coming back via the nether.
I never had any need to that many mushrooms, even as I eat mushroom stew when in the Nether; I just collect whatever I come across (leaving a few so they can respread) and I'd imagine that growing huge mushrooms would be the most efficient way to farm them (they do spread very slowly).
Also, mushrooms on the Nether ceiling was a bug which was originally fixed in 1.4.3, then it came back in 1.7 and the bug report suggests it still happens as they seem to have simply given up on fixing what should be an incredibly simple bugfix (I seem to keep saying this again and again):
MC-1381 Mushrooms spawn on the top of the Nether
Here is code from 1.6.4, which is not affected; note the "(!par1World.provider.hasNoSky || var8 < 127)", which limits them to below y=127 when in a dimension without a sky (Nether and End); my own mod uses separate code to generate mushrooms in the Overworld and Nether with the latter limiting it to below 127 by simply not generating patches that high up, eliminating the need to check each individual block (the vanilla code shown is actually used to generate all types of plants, not just mushrooms):
Interestingly, this is the same line of code from 1.7.10 - they changed 127 to 255, presumably because they did the same in many other places since terrain in the Overworld could now exceed y=127 but in many cases this only caused problems (for example, this is the main reason why dungeons are much rarer since 1.7; even if terrain above y=127 had been made very common it would have very little impact unless the altitude distribution of caves was also changed):
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?