What we have with 1.13+ is a move from a small world feel to a big world feel, and while I dislike the complexity and size, it is more adventurous to explore now, much like the beta versions. It's very different from the classic game's feel but it is enjoyable in its own right. Luckily I am in touch with people who have a lot of older betas heh.
I still dislike the changes to world generation and approach taken to exploration since 1.7 as much as ever; in particular, the changes to the way biomes are laid out - I'm expected to explore the same few biomes for pretty much the lifetime of any world? It takes me about half a year of intensive daily gameplay (probably more than the majority of players) to explore a single level 4 map, which is only 2048x2048 blocks, and a year to explore 3x3 level 3 maps, 3072x3072 blocks; contrast that with this example of a random seed in 1.18:
The nearest snowy biome is 1,700 blocks away; there is a desert region that is over 5,000 blocks wide to the northeast - simply absurd, and this is the default world type, not Large Biomes!
For comparison, this is my current world overlayed on top of it; it took me about 60 days of playtime to explore that far and this is my second-largest and longest-played world (1/3 as much as my first world):
This makes the size of the biomes in 1.18 even more ridiculous. Even if you are willing to use methods like elytra to travel that far I can't imagine how large your worlds must be (again, I have no experience with 1.18 but save sizes should be larger; for comparison, in TMCW fully explored regions are around 8 MB, mostly a result of how complex world generation is as I only increased height variation, not the depth of the underground, Lighting up virtually every cave also has a surprisingly large impact on save size due to all the lightmap data; in my first world fully explored regions average around 5.5 MB).
For another perspective, this is a 940x747 area centered around spawn (or my main base, which is close to it), with all the biomes marked; such an area takes about a month to explore:
I still dislike the changes to world generation and approach taken to exploration since 1.7 as much as ever; in particular, the changes to the way biomes are laid out - I'm expected to explore the same few biomes for pretty much the lifetime of any world? It takes me about half a year of intensive daily gameplay (probably more than the majority of players) to explore a single level 4 map, which is only 2048x2048 blocks, and a year to explore 3x3 level 3 maps, 3072x3072 blocks; contrast that with this example of a random seed in 1.18:
The nearest snowy biome is 1,700 blocks away; there is a desert region that is over 5,000 blocks wide to the northeast - simply absurd, and this is the default world type, not Large Biomes!
For comparison, this is my current world overlayed on top of it; it took me about 60 days of playtime to explore that far and this is my second-largest and longest-played world (1/3 as much as my first world):
This makes the size of the biomes in 1.18 even more ridiculous. Even if you are willing to use methods like elytra to travel that far I can't imagine how large your worlds must be (again, I have no experience with 1.18 but save sizes should be larger; for comparison, in TMCW fully explored regions are around 8 MB, mostly a result of how complex world generation is as I only increased height variation, not the depth of the underground, Lighting up virtually every cave also has a surprisingly large impact on save size due to all the lightmap data; in my first world fully explored regions average around 5.5 MB).
For another perspective, this is a 940x747 area centered around spawn (or my main base, which is close to it), with all the biomes marked; such an area takes about a month to explore:
The game is pushing breadth over depth in exploration - which does not collide well with structures like dungeons being much rarer while ones like villages are much more common.
Yeah, I agree. I do like the old styles of the game from beta 1.0 up to 1.6 though. But I found the game largely unpleasant until at least 1.13 and stayed on 1.5 a long time as a result.
What we have with 1.13+ is a move from a small world feel to a big world feel, and while I dislike the complexity and size, it is more adventurous to explore now, much like the beta versions. It's very different from the classic game's feel but it is enjoyable in its own right. Luckily I am in touch with people who have a lot of older betas heh.
I agree. It's funny, at the time, 1.13 was the release that made me finally consider "maybe this is it, maybe my world will have reached the final version it will ever update to". I had no objections to 1.13's content, but it had serious performance implications. 1.7 and 1.8 already were hard to manage with at the time. At the time I was on something like 1.10 so my world would have been stuck in that "up to 1.12 era" time if I did leave it there. I didn't help that I was playing with a larger render distance (32) and 1.13 came in like 1.7 or 1.8 did and just brought performance down. Later tests with 1.14 were inconclusive; it may or may not have performed slightly better but then it also had issues even loading chunks in (I can't remember if this was only when set beyond the vanilla maximum of 32 or if it as an issue even below that). I sort of gave up and admitted my world might not carry forward and that I'd have to start anew if I wanted to play new versions.
1.16 was that point. The combined features of 1.13, 1.4, and 1.16 were enough to lure me in. So a few years ago I started a new 1.16 world and it became a bit of a consistent thing, with my old world being something I stopped playing indefinitely. I started playing with shaders more (I used to try this before and while they could be pretty, anti-aliasing support was often limited to FXAA in the old days and I found that intolerable, whereas TAA which is more of a thing now, despite its own drawbacks, I could tolerate). So this meant I was playing on a lower render distance as a result, which meant I was less picky about considering performance on a render distance of 32. But despite that, I was actually surprised to find it could handle a render distance of 32 or maybe even 48 at times if I went without shaders (I didn't, but I was surprised that somewhere in 1.15 or 1.16, something must had happened to performance... well I did get a CPU upgrade too though). Then 1.18 happened and I was so in love. Hence my reaction for this thread. 1.18 truly was the best update I've seen in my time, and that's saying something because usually the updates that drop performance (1.3, 1.7, 1.8, and 1.13 prior to this) were ones that I was mixed on at best, if not disliked outright. But 1.18 was just that good and performance was still good at a render distance of 16 with shaders (well, at least once BSL updated and added an option to disable entity shaders, things were... rough before that).
Despite my love for 1.18, I missed my old world. So I went back to play my older world but it felt... so different. I even dropped my render distance and used the shaders I used in my modern profile but obviously there was more to it than that. I remembered 1.18 had the terrain blending feature and came to a hard consideration. I decided to prune a lot of my old word, much of it was "untouched" land anyway, and carried it forward. It would still need a LOT of effort, namely due to how villages had changed in 1.14, and I'm STILL working on things, but bringing that world forward has been a breath of fresh air.
This isn't to speak ill of older versions. If anything I'm agreeing with you that Minecraft definitely has many different "eras", all of which are distinct. Though I've definitely been having a lot of fun in the newest era.
I still dislike the changes to world generation and approach taken to exploration since 1.7 as much as ever; in particular, the changes to the way biomes are laid out - I'm expected to explore the same few biomes for pretty much the lifetime of any world?
Yes, this was definitely a missed opportunity of 1.18. It's part of what made 1.7 (ignoring even the performance impacts) a mixed update for me rather than an entirely good one for me. The new biome additions themselves were great, but the biome layout/climate system introduction made it a mixed thing.
I've come to terms a bit with it existing, even to the point it was a bit jarring going back to my older world and seeing some of the harsh biome transitions, so I'm not saying it has to go. But I'd like to either see it be made less strict, or give player more customization options in world generation settings on a per world basis (there were options for this before and they were a step in the right direction, but even they needed refining).
I still dislike the changes to world generation and approach taken to exploration since 1.7 as much as ever; in particular, the changes to the way biomes are laid out - I'm expected to explore the same few biomes for pretty much the lifetime of any world? It takes me about half a year of intensive daily gameplay (probably more than the majority of players) to explore a single level 4 map, which is only 2048x2048 blocks, and a year to explore 3x3 level 3 maps, 3072x3072 blocks; contrast that with this example of a random seed in 1.18:
The nearest snowy biome is 1,700 blocks away; there is a desert region that is over 5,000 blocks wide to the northeast - simply absurd, and this is the default world type, not Large Biomes!
For comparison, this is my current world overlayed on top of it; it took me about 60 days of playtime to explore that far and this is my second-largest and longest-played world (1/3 as much as my first world):
This makes the size of the biomes in 1.18 even more ridiculous. Even if you are willing to use methods like elytra to travel that far I can't imagine how large your worlds must be (again, I have no experience with 1.18 but save sizes should be larger; for comparison, in TMCW fully explored regions are around 8 MB, mostly a result of how complex world generation is as I only increased height variation, not the depth of the underground, Lighting up virtually every cave also has a surprisingly large impact on save size due to all the lightmap data; in my first world fully explored regions average around 5.5 MB).
For another perspective, this is a 940x747 area centered around spawn (or my main base, which is close to it), with all the biomes marked; such an area takes about a month to explore:
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 game is pushing breadth over depth in exploration - which does not collide well with structures like dungeons being much rarer while ones like villages are much more common.
I agree. It's funny, at the time, 1.13 was the release that made me finally consider "maybe this is it, maybe my world will have reached the final version it will ever update to". I had no objections to 1.13's content, but it had serious performance implications. 1.7 and 1.8 already were hard to manage with at the time. At the time I was on something like 1.10 so my world would have been stuck in that "up to 1.12 era" time if I did leave it there. I didn't help that I was playing with a larger render distance (32) and 1.13 came in like 1.7 or 1.8 did and just brought performance down. Later tests with 1.14 were inconclusive; it may or may not have performed slightly better but then it also had issues even loading chunks in (I can't remember if this was only when set beyond the vanilla maximum of 32 or if it as an issue even below that). I sort of gave up and admitted my world might not carry forward and that I'd have to start anew if I wanted to play new versions.
1.16 was that point. The combined features of 1.13, 1.4, and 1.16 were enough to lure me in. So a few years ago I started a new 1.16 world and it became a bit of a consistent thing, with my old world being something I stopped playing indefinitely. I started playing with shaders more (I used to try this before and while they could be pretty, anti-aliasing support was often limited to FXAA in the old days and I found that intolerable, whereas TAA which is more of a thing now, despite its own drawbacks, I could tolerate). So this meant I was playing on a lower render distance as a result, which meant I was less picky about considering performance on a render distance of 32. But despite that, I was actually surprised to find it could handle a render distance of 32 or maybe even 48 at times if I went without shaders (I didn't, but I was surprised that somewhere in 1.15 or 1.16, something must had happened to performance... well I did get a CPU upgrade too though). Then 1.18 happened and I was so in love. Hence my reaction for this thread. 1.18 truly was the best update I've seen in my time, and that's saying something because usually the updates that drop performance (1.3, 1.7, 1.8, and 1.13 prior to this) were ones that I was mixed on at best, if not disliked outright. But 1.18 was just that good and performance was still good at a render distance of 16 with shaders (well, at least once BSL updated and added an option to disable entity shaders, things were... rough before that).
Despite my love for 1.18, I missed my old world. So I went back to play my older world but it felt... so different. I even dropped my render distance and used the shaders I used in my modern profile but obviously there was more to it than that. I remembered 1.18 had the terrain blending feature and came to a hard consideration. I decided to prune a lot of my old word, much of it was "untouched" land anyway, and carried it forward. It would still need a LOT of effort, namely due to how villages had changed in 1.14, and I'm STILL working on things, but bringing that world forward has been a breath of fresh air.
This isn't to speak ill of older versions. If anything I'm agreeing with you that Minecraft definitely has many different "eras", all of which are distinct. Though I've definitely been having a lot of fun in the newest era.
Yes, this was definitely a missed opportunity of 1.18. It's part of what made 1.7 (ignoring even the performance impacts) a mixed update for me rather than an entirely good one for me. The new biome additions themselves were great, but the biome layout/climate system introduction made it a mixed thing.
I've come to terms a bit with it existing, even to the point it was a bit jarring going back to my older world and seeing some of the harsh biome transitions, so I'm not saying it has to go. But I'd like to either see it be made less strict, or give player more customization options in world generation settings on a per world basis (there were options for this before and they were a step in the right direction, but even they needed refining).