I started up a new world and could not find a fortress, but i was looking around on the internet and one of the update fixes said that they're going to make it so the fortress always spawns. Will I need to make a new map if I want the fortress?
Yes. You'll have to recreate that map to get a nether fortress. Any change that effects biome/terrain generation will require a new map for the new features, generally speaking.
When you are dealing with structures as big and complex as strongholds and nether fortresses being added, its almost always a good idea to start a new map.
The game *should* still have an opportunity to add such areas to areas you have not seen or explored when something like this is added to an existing world, but I am not convinced that really happens.
But as the Netherworld is comparatively small and open, if you don't see a Nether Fortress, chances are your seed didn't put it in. Nothing you can do there but start over.
The game *should* still have an opportunity to add such areas to areas you have not seen or explored when something like this is added to an existing world, but I am not convinced that really happens.
It does. I've had the game add clay to my worlds in unexplored areas after the clay fix. I've also had it add parts of a village to a pre 1.8 world that still had undiscovered parts of the map.
As for something like a Nether Fortress or Stronghold being added, those things are already rare. So if you only have say, half your world still undiscovered, that cuts the chance of something like a Stronghold being added even more due to the way they generate.
I think the best move would be to start the world again after the bug fix comes out. If you really like the rest of the world as it is, just use the same seed string as the world you just created. It really shouldn't change much. Once you save a world, the seed string appears on the load screen as you re-load the world, so you can write it down from that screen and type it into the "Seed" slot when you create a new world. While you're waiting for the bug fix to come, I probably wouldn't invest too much time in building things you might tend to want to keep. I'd probably just explore the world, look for locations of mineshafts, the stronghold, and precious ores and write the coordinates of these down so I could locate them again easily in the world created after the bug fix.
The game *should* still have an opportunity to add such areas to areas you have not seen or explored when something like this is added to an existing world, but I am not convinced that really happens.
But as the Netherworld is comparatively small and open, if you don't see a Nether Fortress, chances are your seed didn't put it in. Nothing you can do there but start over.
As for something like a Nether Fortress or Stronghold being added, those things are already rare. So if you only have say, half your world still undiscovered, that cuts the chance of something like a Stronghold being added even more due to the way they generate.