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Because of the amount of people who like the Minecraft Beta terrain generator, I felt this deserved it's own thread, so that people could see that this is indeed possible.

I've made a preset that is close to the Beta generator, it has full height variation across all biomes, and many of the landmarks look similar to the Beta landmarks in the seeds I've tested.

There are some differences, but that could have something to do with the addition of all the new stuff since Beta, making the random generator give out somewhat different numbers than it used to.

I call my new preset the Neo-Beta preset.

I've also made a second preset that I call the Super-Beta preset, which is the Neo-Beta preset, with much higher mountains that can extend to near the build height, a higher sea level, and 50% more underground space than Neo-Beta.
It can get kind of laggy, I recommend increasing the amount of ram that you run Minecraft with for the best results.

Here are the presets for you to use:

Neo-Beta Preset

Neo-Beta Preset (with Map Features turned on)

Super-Beta Preset

Super-Beta Preset (with Map Features turned on)

I've compared the code in ChunkProviderGenerate.java from Beta 1.7.3 to the code in azd.class from 14w18b.

The following terrain settings had the exact same values in both Beta 1.7.3 and 14w18b:
coordinateScale: 684.412
heightScale: 684.412
lowerLimitScale: 512.000
upperLimitScale: 512.000
depthNoiseScaleX: 200.000
depthNoiseScaleZ: 200.000
depthNoiseScaleExponent: 0.5
mainNoiseScaleX: 80.0
mainNoiseScaleY: 160.0
mainNoiseScaleZ: 80.0
baseSize: 8.5
stretchY: 12.0

seaLevel was 64 in Beta 1.7.3 instead of 63.

biomeDepthWeight, and biomeScaleWeight both need to be set to 0.0, in order to get full height variation across all biomes back.

The two settings I couldn't find the value for in Beta 1.7.3 were biomeDepthOffset, and biomeScaleOffset.
I checked the code for ChunkProviderGenerate.java in Minecraft 1.6, and those two settings affect minHeight and maxHeight.
If you've already set biomeDepthWeight and biomeScaleWeight to 0.0, then they seem to affect the height universally across all biomes.
The Beta 1.7.3 code seemed to use a lot of math to determine the minimum and maximum height, and I couldn't quite figure out what numbers I should input there.

So, I've played around with both biomeDepthOffset and biomeScaleOffset, until I got things looking as close to Beta as I could.
If you want to play around with it some more, biomeDepthOffset is minHeight, and biomeScaleOffset is maxHeight.

I've set biomeSize to 2, as I felt that setting was closest to Beta's small biomes.

Here are some comparison screenshots on the same seed, between Beta 1.7.3, and 14w18b with the Neo-Beta preset.

Seed: Glacier

Here are some more screenshots of the Neo-Beta preset.

And, here are some screenshots of the Super-Beta preset.

I hope you like my presets!

Wow! I will definitely keep these presets in mind for the future of my minecraft experience.

Quote from The_Fool76

Does this mean that I could import an old beta map into a current snapshot with these settings and not have horrible massive cliff faces everywhere?

The biomes would be all messed up, and there would still be a sharp border, but probably not a cliff.

You seem to be forgetting something with the oceans...
Seed: Glacier, at -7,76,-1989 facing south for both screenshots.

Actual Beta 1.7: Custom:
edit: Perhaps you have created a "singularity" generator, which generates much like Beta near the origin, but with drastically different terrain far from the origin.

Nice preset! Thanks for making it!

I had tried to create a preset with more terrain variation after I found I out that setting biomeDepthWeight and biomeScaleWeight to 0 makes biome-independent terrain. However, mine never got close to replicating Beta because I didn't think to look in Beta's code.

But since you did, you managed to create Beta terrain in Minecraft 14w19a. I like the Glacier seed (those mountains look really nice, much better than an extreme-hills biome) and I have started a survival world in it.

Quote from kwerti

You seem to be forgetting something with the oceans...
Seed: Glacier, at -7,76,-1989 facing south for both screenshots.

Actual Beta 1.7:

Custom:

edit: Perhaps you have created a "singularity" generator, which generates much like Beta near the origin, but with drastically different terrain far from the origin.

Yeah, like I said, there are some differences between this and Beta, I couldn't do anything about that.

I think the problem is that a lot of the new stuff that's been added to the game, blocks, biomes, etc., are using up some of the numbers from the random number generator that were originally used in the beta terrain, and that causes the terrain generator to get different numbers in some places, which makes parts of the world come out differently than it originally did in Beta.

It might not be possible to get it exactly like Beta, I tried to get it as close to Beta as I could, but you're more than welcome to play around with the values in the preset if you want to try to get it closer.

Quote from Jeffrey6978

Yeah, like I said, there are some differences between this and Beta, I couldn't do anything about that.

I think the problem is that a lot of the new stuff that's been added to the game, blocks, biomes, etc., are using up some of the numbers from the random number generator that were originally used in the beta terrain, and that causes the terrain generator to get different numbers in some places, which makes parts of the world come out differently than it originally did in Beta.

It might not be possible to get it exactly like Beta, I tried to get it as close to Beta as I could, but you're more than welcome to play around with the values in the preset if you want to try to get it closer.

It may also have to do with the farlands. In Beta, the generator's math would mess up at +/-12,550,827, creating the farlands. Of course, this was since fixed, and there can no longer be farlands. Now, in your preset, terrain looks almost identical to Beta near the origin (+/-100 blocks in Glacier), but past a few dozen blocks, little distortions begin to creep in (larger mountains, mountains where there weren't any). At large distances, say 1000 blocks, the terrain is unrecognizable. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that the old generator only supported a limited range (A little under 2^24 blocks before the farlands)

edit: Also, have you tried editing the upper/lower scales instead?

edit2: Yes, there are way more mountains than in actual Beta. Probably something only the Beta generator had.

looks amazing.

Quote from kwerti

edit: Also, have you tried editing the upper/lower scales instead?

Yeah, before I had looked at the Beta code, I first tried messing with the upper/lower scales, as well as the coordinate/height scales, and while it still looked similar to Beta near spawn, it had even more/bigger mountains at that point than in the current preset, and had the same problems with some areas looking completely different than Beta.

I didn't feel that I had it close enough to Beta at that point, that's why I ended up looking directly at the Beta code to get the proper values for everything that I could.
The upper/lower scales were definitely set to 512.000 in Beta.
Almost everything had the same values in Beta, the main difference was in the part of the code that ended up becoming biomeDepthOffset and biomeScaleOffset in the later versions of the game. That part of the code controlled the height in Beta.

Actually, if you load up Glacier in the Amplified world type, you'll see that a lot of the terrain is very similar to, although much bigger, than this preset. So, the differences from Beta, don't just affect this preset, but the generator as a whole. Something changed, and the random number generator seems to give out somewhat different numbers now.

The Beta terrain generator has basically been buried underneath the current generator this whole time, it's just that it was flattened with biomeDepthOffset and biomeScaleOffset being set to 0.0, and then a lot of the biomes used biomeDepthWeight and biomeScaleWeight to alter it to the point that it was unrecognizable.

This preset reverses that process, and unburies the Beta terrain generator.

So, even if the seeds don't come out 100% exact to how they were in Beta, it's still got the full height variation across all biomes that Beta had, the seeds look similar in places, and overall it's still the kind of terrain that generated in Beta, so that makes it playable for me.

Quote from Jeffrey6978

Yeah, before I had looked at the Beta code, I first tried messing with the upper/lower scales, as well as the coordinate/height scales, and while it still looked similar to Beta near spawn, it had even more/bigger mountains at that point than in the current preset, and had the same problems with some areas looking completely different than Beta.

I didn't feel that I had it close enough to Beta at that point, that's why I ended up looking directly at the Beta code to get the proper values for everything that I could.
The upper/lower scales were definitely set to 512.000 in Beta.
Almost everything had the same values in Beta, the main difference was in the part of the code that ended up becoming biomeDepthOffset and biomeScaleOffset in the later versions of the game. That part of the code controlled the height in Beta.

Actually, if you load up Glacier in the Amplified world type, you'll see that a lot of the terrain is very similar to, although much bigger, than this preset. So, the differences from Beta, don't just affect this preset, but the generator as a whole. Something changed, and the random number generator seems to give out somewhat different numbers now.

The Beta terrain generator has basically been buried underneath the current generator this whole time, it's just that it was flattened with biomeDepthOffset and biomeScaleOffset being set to 0.0, and then a lot of the biomes used biomeDepthWeight and biomeScaleWeight to alter it to the point that it was unrecognizable.

This preset reverses that process, and unburies the Beta terrain generator.

So, even if the seeds don't come out 100% exact to how they were in Beta, it's still got the full height variation across all biomes that Beta had, the seeds look similar in places, and overall it's still the kind of terrain that generated in Beta, so that makes it playable for me.

Exactly what I figured out after playing around with the upper/lower scales. I also found that at the coordinates I posted the terrain was actually much more Beta-like (when editing the upper/lower scales), though far from exact. Your preset's only downside is that there don't seem to be any of the "oceans" that Beta had. I'm wondering if a combination of both will yield more Beta-looking terrain.

Now, if only the biomes could be customized to remove those annoying rivers and extreme hills...and mesas.

Quote from Robert-Frans

There are no oceans in this preset, because he used a trick somehow to make the ocean biomes just grassy landscapes with here and there a tree and some flowers (and large sand patches that were beaches once). Even the frozen ocean gives a winter wonderland.

If you load this preset in an ocean world, then it is like you are wandering through a very early stage of developing: no biomes and only grass with some trees and lakes. Even if it propably does not resemble a real early alpha world (the grass for example is less nuclear), it gave me a strange feel of the past.

Personally, I like to set the biome to Forest, although Plains may be somewhat more accurate in terms of what Beta actually generated as ground cover. (Never want to see those "shrublands" again)

You can also find out that mesa bryce towers are structures, not generated with the terrain.

Is there somewhere I can copy/paste the preset data, or do I have to enter it manually every time?

Amazing job! I only wish I had the seed from the first ever world I played in beta 1.7.3 (long ago deleted) so I could relive the memories...

Quote from Flexico

Is there somewhere I can copy/paste the preset data, or do I have to enter it manually every time?

ctrl+a
delete
ctrl+v

Quote from Roos-Skywalker

You can copy the preset data and do CTRL + V in Minecraft.

Quote from Rotasizx

ctrl+a
delete
ctrl+v

I am aware of how to copy/paste stuff, but where in Minecraft would I paste it? All I see are sliders and buttons.

Quote from Flexico

I am aware of how to copy/paste stuff, but where in Minecraft would I paste it? All I see are sliders and buttons.

Presets.

Quote from AgentPaint

Presets.

Aha, derp! There it is. =P