Once again, the main gripe seems to be the lack of randomization in the terrain.
Mojang opted for distinct biomes in Beta 1.8, and I can understand why they did.
I can also understand why some players prefer the old system, but is there really a solution?
Height at the top is 108, which means it cannot be considered puny compared to extreme biomes in 1.8. And I could go all day, generating landscapes that rain all over post 1.8. The above has trees and grass and appears naturally throughout the landscape, instead of being clumped.
I just ran to a jungle biome, and climbed one of those "puny" jungle hills.
105 at the top of the hill, 118 at the top of the TREES up there.
The hills/mountains were retained,
it's just the distribution within biomes that's upsetting you.
I keep seeing that the terrain for pre 1.8 versions is more varied... nonsense. All I ever got was forests, plains, and deserts. Now we have jungles, swamps, mushroom biomes, and so on.
And I know that 1.7 did have extreme hills, they just weren't as common as the extreme hills in 1.8.
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I've been a Minecraft player since Beta 1.7, still my favorite game!
Twitter: @EvanLange7737
If you are suggesting that hills prior to 1.8 were puny then I'm afraid what you are claiming is demonstrably invalid. Every world I've created in 1.7.3 can produce mountains such as this: -
Height at the top is 108, which means it cannot be considered puny compared to extreme biomes in 1.8. And I could go all day, generating landscapes that rain all over post 1.8. The above has trees and grass and appears naturally throughout the landscape, instead of being clumped.
Oh my gosh ;_;
I miss that. The old generation has this sort of magic that the new still doesn't have. They have seemed to added cliffs in the new gen forest, but they are always dead drop offs, ravines are dead drops too, this is more of a random extreme hills. I also miss the floating islands however nonsensical they may be..
If you are suggesting that hills prior to 1.8 were puny then I'm afraid what you are claiming is demonstrably invalid. Every world I've created in 1.7.3 can produce mountains such as this: -
Height at the top is 108, which means it cannot be considered puny compared to extreme biomes in 1.8. And I could go all day, generating landscapes that rain all over post 1.8. The above has trees and grass and appears naturally throughout the landscape, instead of being clumped.
I have two main worlds. One world is from beta 1.1 and doesnt have much land generated from beta 1.7, just because I didnt explore much around then. My other main world is what I created in 1.7 and 1.8, and I have tons of mountains that look like that. And you know what, I have never once built anything on the epic mountains I have, because theres not enough flat space on the top. So, while I agree these epic mountains look cool and are rare, I would rather have them rare, because theyre awesome to look at but useless in terms of building (at least to me).
I have two main worlds. One world is from beta 1.1 and doesnt have much land generated from beta 1.7, just because I didnt explore much around then. My other main world is what I created in 1.7 and 1.8, and I have tons of mountains that look like that. And you know what, I have never once built anything on the epic mountains I have, because theres not enough flat space on the top. So, while I agree these epic mountains look cool and are rare, I would rather have them rare, because theyre awesome to look at but useless in terms of building (at least to me).
I wouldn't say have them rare, but definitely not as common as hilly/consecutively flatter land. With random height variation, if you don't like a spot you can explore for one you do like. I wouldn't say mountains would be "rare" because every seed would be unique and every area would be unique. With the terrain we have now, we're forced with one type of terrain all the time in every world.
I agree with the height variation, not a fan of shrinking caves and mineshafts.
He said majority, but I think I have to disagree with him (in his wording) as well because random cave generation would give you different cave sizes in every world, so I'm not sure if there's any set parameters for random cave generation - like there's going to be X amount of smaller caves and Y amount of bigger caves in every world. But he does have a very strong point - caves right now are forcefully seemingly endless. I'd like to see the return of smaller caves and the chance for there to be a lot less cave intersections.
With that being said, you could still find a seed with an area(s) containing the underground swiss-cheese complexes we have now. Random means random.
Maybe it looks better, but it's boring since everything looks the same.
If you explore enough that's been true since alpha. Way back in 1.2.4 I made a world for my server (after several previous tries because they weren't overly exciting worlds. Sound familiar?) and spent a couple hours running around and exploring. It was pretty nice landscape but over time I saw the same cave structures, similar hills and other formations and even the really awesome waterfall cliffs I found early on, I found two others later with only a little variation between the three. At present I don't really find the terrain in 1.2.5 (and even less so in the 1.3 snapshots, especially with large biomes) any more boring than I did back in alpha or beta. It still needs some tweaking, mostly in terms of tree distribution, yes. But it gets old hearing the exact same "it's boring, everything's the same, terrain sux" that I heard back when 1.8 came out despite the fact it has changed considerably from then.
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My Spigot/CraftBukkit plugins: TallNether - Generate a 256-block high nether
I wouldn't say the terrain is better than alpha, though it's a lot better than recent updates
Also, does anyone know when/if the Indev island generation options will be re-added?
I don't think things are too bad terrain-wise at the moment, but I do have a wish list:
> Proper plateaus and escarpments.
I.e. it should be possible for a forest biome, or plain, or anything else to exist at a high elevation. There doesn't necessarily always have to be that much variation in height within these elevated biomes, although elevation changes are cool. It’s just that high land needn’t always be a mountain pinnacle.
Just think how cool it would be to venture through a forest and then emerge at the edge of an escarpment with lowland stretching out below you (one for those with higher draw distances) or finding lines of towering sea cliffs that aren't just an extreme hills biome next to the ocean.
> Large bodies of water (lakes and corries) appearing across a greater range of elevations, not just immediately adjacent to sea level.
> Random mountains appearing in any biome and logical chains of mountains forming ranges.
Extreme hills can look great, but when you see them you immediately know that you'll just get a mass of mountains with nothing interesting between them. I want to be able to find forested valleys and such nestled in the mountains (oh and a few more trees on mountains please....I'd be ok with a treeline above which tree coverge is less dense, but it doesn't have to be too low).
> A true mountain and mountain foothills set of biomes that can exceed the current 128 height cap. Put some snow at the peaks of the highest of these mountains too.
I guess these would appear like the extreme hills we have now, but taller and pointier. Extreme hills can stay though, maybe sometimes clustered around mountains or as barren hilly lands in their own right. But extreme hill type elevation would be possible in any boime.
Only parts of the terrain pre 1.8 I miss are the beaches and the old hills/mountains. It was nice to build in those large bays, and easy to make quick houses in the sides of rocky hills and mountains.
I also miss 1.8 swamps, which apparently is something that isn't going to be changed.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I've been a Minecraft player since Beta 1.7, still my favorite game!
Twitter: @EvanLange7737
I don't think things are too bad terrain-wise at the moment, but I do have a wish list:
> Proper plateaus and escarpments.
I.e. it should be possible for a forest biome, or plain, or anything else to exist at a high elevation. There doesn't necessarily always have to be that much variation in height within these elevated biomes, although elevation changes are cool. It’s just that high land needn’t always be a mountain pinnacle.
Just think how cool it would be to venture through a forest and then emerge at the edge of an escarpment with lowland stretching out below you (one for those with higher draw distances) or finding lines of towering sea cliffs that aren't just an extreme hills biome next to the ocean.
> Large bodies of water (lakes and corries) appearing across a greater range of elevations, not just immediately adjacent to sea level.
> Random mountains appearing in any biome and logical chains of mountains forming ranges.
Extreme hills can look great, but when you see them you immediately know that you'll just get a mass of mountains with nothing interesting between them. I want to be able to find forested valleys and such nestled in the mountains (oh and a few more trees on mountains please....I'd be ok with a treeline above which tree coverge is less dense, but it doesn't have to be too low).
> A true mountain and mountain foothills set of biomes that can exceed the current 128 height cap. Put some snow at the peaks of the highest of these mountains too.
I guess these would appear like the extreme hills we have now, but taller and pointier. Extreme hills can stay though, maybe sometimes clustered around mountains or as barren hilly lands in their own right. But extreme hill type elevation would be possible in any boime.
Same here. Except I'm not a fan of the "swiss cheese" effect today's Extreme Hills and mountains get. This effect is from too much noise in the y-axis, leaving cavitations and jutting cliffs in midair .
It seemed that in Alpha, more of the mountains were capable of being broad-based, massive, conical peaks that merged with one another along the margins to make ranges. You saw a few cliff juts and overhangs, but not so many that they dominated the landscape in mountainous areas. These are cool if you find them once in a while. all the time though, and it's not only boring, but they are in fact more difficult to incorporate into architecture and exploration.
It's possible to tweak the y-axis noise and cavitation index manually (using a mod such as BiomeTerrainMod, or TerrainControl for Bukkit) to get variably disc-shaped or saucer-shaped overhangs and undercuts to otherwise swell sloping mountains. These are far more interesting and fun to climb, build on, and live underneath. As an added bonus, they may occur under the sea, giving you two or more seafloors with air-filled or water-filled lenticular caverns between. You get plenty of buildable terrain above y= 128 and all the trees and other procedural features (villages, lava lakes, water lakes, ravines, dungeons) that come with the level terrain in those biomes, also occurs on and in the saucers.
By reducing the y-axis fractionation somewhat, you can get a mixture of free-floating islands, attached saucers, and entirely-attached mushroom cap mountains and mesas/escarpments.
TerrainControl and MCTerra let you assign separate sets of noise functions to each biome, so you can have flat deserts next to highly sculpted forests and so on.
I don't see why Mojang doesn't take this extra step and try to make a better and more user friendly terrain generation algorithm.
Mojang opted for distinct biomes in Beta 1.8, and I can understand why they did.
I can also understand why some players prefer the old system, but is there really a solution?
I just ran to a jungle biome, and climbed one of those "puny" jungle hills.
105 at the top of the hill, 118 at the top of the TREES up there.
The hills/mountains were retained,
it's just the distribution within biomes that's upsetting you.
Yeah we did. Some seeds just had more of it than others.
I've really grown to like the new terrain gen, despite how much more predictable it is now. The only thing old-gen still did better is beaches.
Current beaches are nice...
But old beaches were nicer...
And I know that 1.7 did have extreme hills, they just weren't as common as the extreme hills in 1.8.
Twitter: @EvanLange7737
I miss that. The old generation has this sort of magic that the new still doesn't have. They have seemed to added cliffs in the new gen forest, but they are always dead drop offs, ravines are dead drops too, this is more of a random extreme hills. I also miss the floating islands however nonsensical they may be..
I have two main worlds. One world is from beta 1.1 and doesnt have much land generated from beta 1.7, just because I didnt explore much around then. My other main world is what I created in 1.7 and 1.8, and I have tons of mountains that look like that. And you know what, I have never once built anything on the epic mountains I have, because theres not enough flat space on the top. So, while I agree these epic mountains look cool and are rare, I would rather have them rare, because theyre awesome to look at but useless in terms of building (at least to me).
I wouldn't say have them rare, but definitely not as common as hilly/consecutively flatter land. With random height variation, if you don't like a spot you can explore for one you do like. I wouldn't say mountains would be "rare" because every seed would be unique and every area would be unique. With the terrain we have now, we're forced with one type of terrain all the time in every world.
Yeah, in alpha it was neon-burn-your-eyes green.
I agree with the height variation, not a fan of shrinking caves and mineshafts.
Twitter: @EvanLange7737
He said majority, but I think I have to disagree with him (in his wording) as well because random cave generation would give you different cave sizes in every world, so I'm not sure if there's any set parameters for random cave generation - like there's going to be X amount of smaller caves and Y amount of bigger caves in every world. But he does have a very strong point - caves right now are forcefully seemingly endless. I'd like to see the return of smaller caves and the chance for there to be a lot less cave intersections.
With that being said, you could still find a seed with an area(s) containing the underground swiss-cheese complexes we have now. Random means random.
If you explore enough that's been true since alpha. Way back in 1.2.4 I made a world for my server (after several previous tries because they weren't overly exciting worlds. Sound familiar?) and spent a couple hours running around and exploring. It was pretty nice landscape but over time I saw the same cave structures, similar hills and other formations and even the really awesome waterfall cliffs I found early on, I found two others later with only a little variation between the three. At present I don't really find the terrain in 1.2.5 (and even less so in the 1.3 snapshots, especially with large biomes) any more boring than I did back in alpha or beta. It still needs some tweaking, mostly in terms of tree distribution, yes. But it gets old hearing the exact same "it's boring, everything's the same, terrain sux" that I heard back when 1.8 came out despite the fact it has changed considerably from then.
My Spigot/CraftBukkit plugins:
TallNether - Generate a 256-block high nether
FarLandsAgain - Restores the Far Lands
User: *BOOM* You're dead.
Cleverbot: I divide by zero and come back as an angel ninja.
Also, does anyone know when/if the Indev island generation options will be re-added?
> Proper plateaus and escarpments.
I.e. it should be possible for a forest biome, or plain, or anything else to exist at a high elevation. There doesn't necessarily always have to be that much variation in height within these elevated biomes, although elevation changes are cool. It’s just that high land needn’t always be a mountain pinnacle.
Just think how cool it would be to venture through a forest and then emerge at the edge of an escarpment with lowland stretching out below you (one for those with higher draw distances) or finding lines of towering sea cliffs that aren't just an extreme hills biome next to the ocean.
> Large bodies of water (lakes and corries) appearing across a greater range of elevations, not just immediately adjacent to sea level.
> Random mountains appearing in any biome and logical chains of mountains forming ranges.
Extreme hills can look great, but when you see them you immediately know that you'll just get a mass of mountains with nothing interesting between them. I want to be able to find forested valleys and such nestled in the mountains (oh and a few more trees on mountains please....I'd be ok with a treeline above which tree coverge is less dense, but it doesn't have to be too low).
> A true mountain and mountain foothills set of biomes that can exceed the current 128 height cap. Put some snow at the peaks of the highest of these mountains too.
I guess these would appear like the extreme hills we have now, but taller and pointier. Extreme hills can stay though, maybe sometimes clustered around mountains or as barren hilly lands in their own right. But extreme hill type elevation would be possible in any boime.
I also miss 1.8 swamps, which apparently is something that isn't going to be changed.
Twitter: @EvanLange7737
Probably not, because it's the community that changed those, LOL.
Same here. Except I'm not a fan of the "swiss cheese" effect today's Extreme Hills and mountains get. This effect is from too much noise in the y-axis, leaving cavitations and jutting cliffs in midair .
It seemed that in Alpha, more of the mountains were capable of being broad-based, massive, conical peaks that merged with one another along the margins to make ranges. You saw a few cliff juts and overhangs, but not so many that they dominated the landscape in mountainous areas. These are cool if you find them once in a while. all the time though, and it's not only boring, but they are in fact more difficult to incorporate into architecture and exploration.
It's possible to tweak the y-axis noise and cavitation index manually (using a mod such as BiomeTerrainMod, or TerrainControl for Bukkit) to get variably disc-shaped or saucer-shaped overhangs and undercuts to otherwise swell sloping mountains. These are far more interesting and fun to climb, build on, and live underneath. As an added bonus, they may occur under the sea, giving you two or more seafloors with air-filled or water-filled lenticular caverns between. You get plenty of buildable terrain above y= 128 and all the trees and other procedural features (villages, lava lakes, water lakes, ravines, dungeons) that come with the level terrain in those biomes, also occurs on and in the saucers.
By reducing the y-axis fractionation somewhat, you can get a mixture of free-floating islands, attached saucers, and entirely-attached mushroom cap mountains and mesas/escarpments.
TerrainControl and MCTerra let you assign separate sets of noise functions to each biome, so you can have flat deserts next to highly sculpted forests and so on.
I don't see why Mojang doesn't take this extra step and try to make a better and more user friendly terrain generation algorithm.