I posted another thread on this, but that thread is long lost, and this time I'm posting a more developed version of the idea. Here it is:
The main idea is that the Minecraft world would deliberately generate large floating islands, sometimes even the size of smaller biomes (although this would be extremely rare; normally they would be around 2-3 chunks). These islands would occasionally spawn throughout the world, maybe .5 to 1 per biome in a default world (can be changed in a custom world). The tops of these islands would generate exactly like their respective biomes, except for the bit where they're in the sky (watch out for floating desert islands!). The ores would generate differently in floating islands as well, with rarer ores spawning closer to the center (the center would always have a vein of ore).
Some of you have noticed that when you build yourself a floating island, it casts a shadow, and mobs start spawning in this shadow. My suggestion for fixing this problem is that an exception would be added to the code that tells mobs not to spawn in shadows cast by blocks that are't connected to the blocks that have the shadow being cast over them. There would also be a new gamerule, islandShadowsProtectZombies, that decides whether island-generated shadows protect zombies and skeletons from daylight (turned on by default). The other annoying thing about floating islands is that when the island is over land, and you build a waterfall, the bottom tends to just be an annoying/ugly-looking splat of flowing water. My suggestion for this is that natural-looking bodies of water have no choice but to generate under waterfalls from natural floating islands.
There would also be a couple of new biomes that are pretty much made of floating islands. First of all, there would be the most common of them all: floating mountains. This would generate just like extreme hills, except with no grass, trees, or dirt, and the water doesn't freeze. Next there would be floating plains, which have 2 variants: normal plains and savannah. Then there would be the second-rarest: the floating desert, which would have 3 variants: normal, red desert, and mesa. Finally, the rarest of them all would be the floating forest, which strangely has the greatest number of variants. There's jungle, rainforest, oak, birch, taiga, dark oak, and mushroom. Then, each of these variants would each have 2 subvariants, one over land and one over the ocean. Overall, if you cont each subvariant as a different biome, that's 26 new biomes! Villages can generate on these islands.
One thing that could generate in any sky island biome would be a new temple, called the sky temple, which will have significantly better loot than desert and jungle temples, but nowhere near as good as End City Dungeons. One item that will always generate in at least one chest in the temple is an enchanted book with a new enchantment (I don't currently have a name for this enchantment. Please suggest names). This enchantment must be combined with a flint & steel (I'll explain in the next paragraph). This special enchantment will cause the flint & steel to produce a blue flame that doesn't spread or go out (unless snuffed or dowsed with water). however, it will still light entities, including the ones that are immune to fire, and deal 50% more damage than normal fire.
Finally, a new dimension: the Sky. My current idea for the portal is that it would be chiseled quartz, arranged exactly like a nether portal. Then you would need a flint & steel with the special enchantment that you found in the last paragraph, and then light the portal exactly the way you would light a normal nether portal (which, by the way, the enchanted flint & steel can also do). When you go through the portal, you will find yourself inside a newly spawned return portal (exactly like the nether portal). The Sky is basically the overworld, except it's made entirely out of floating islands, with nothing but the void below them, the first island that you spawn on being about the size of the main End island. Each floating island is a different overworld biome, with islands that are close together tending to have the same biome as one another. Normal overworld mobs will spawn here. Now, some may think that this is all there is to tell about a new dimension, but I haven't even gotten to the fun part!...
Once the Sky has begun to generate (when you go through the Sky portal), the system will start a timer. Initially, the Sky won't generate any new villages. However, once three Minecraft days have passed, the system will check to make sure that there are no players within render distance of the portal. Then it will spawn a village (basically, the villagers are colonizing the Sky). This will not overwrite existing blocks, and it will steer clear of player-made structures. After this, newly generated land will generate villages just like the Overworld. Another thing that will happen with the timer is 2 new gamerules, skyMovementSpeed and skyMovementDirection, both numeral gamerules, where skyMovementSpeed is decimal friendly, and both are 0 by default. As soon as you step into the Sky dimension, the coordinates will start to move out of sync with the Overworld, by the number of blocks per second that you put in for the gamerule skyMovementSpeed, in the direction with the numeral value that was put in for skyMovementDirection. Also, the Sky clouds won't appear to move, as the islands are moving with them. Basically, if you have skyMovementDirection on 1 and skyMovementSpeed on 1, and stay in the Sky for exactly one Minecraft day, then return to the Overworld, you'll come through a new portal 1,200 blocks west of your original portal. However, you do not have to worry about drifting out of the world, as when a coordinate in the Sky passes the world border, the new portal will simply be up against the border, on the correct side, and when a coordinate in one dimension equals 30,000,000 in one dimension, it will reset itself to -30,000,000, or vice versa. Don't worry if you don't like this, though. As I said before, there's the skyMovementSpeed gamerule, which defaults to 0, so it won't move at all.
Just saying, if this did get added into Minecraft, I'm confident that most of it will be enjoyed by the majority of the community. As for the Sky dimension, I have absolutely no idea what kind of support it will get.
Well, I like all of it except for the movement of the sky biome. You would lose your Overworld home awfully fast that way. Plus, what would happen when youi leave the portal, and then go back in later? Would you be in basically a whole new dimension, cause the sky dimension part you were in floated away? Or would you go back?
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Well, I like all of it except for the movement of the sky biome.
Don't you mean dimension?
You would lose your Overworld home awfully fast that way. Plus, what would happen when youi leave the portal, and then go back in later? Would you be in basically a whole new dimension, cause the sky dimension part you were in floated away? Or would you go back?
Well, the idea was that you would have to choose whether to live in the Sky or the Overworld, but now that you mention it, I guess it's not really incredibly fair on a no cheats world. I still think the gamerule skyMovementSpeed should exist, but it should be 0 instead of 1.
I posted another thread on this, but that thread is long lost, and this time I'm posting a more developed version of the idea. Here it is:
The main idea is that the Minecraft world would deliberately generate large floating islands, sometimes even the size of smaller biomes (although this would be extremely rare; normally they would be around 2-3 chunks). These islands would occasionally spawn throughout the world, maybe .5 to 1 per biome in a default world (can be changed in a custom world). The tops of these islands would generate exactly like their respective biomes, except for the bit where they're in the sky (watch out for floating desert islands!). The ores would generate differently in floating islands as well, with rarer ores spawning closer to the center (the center would always have a vein of ore).
Some of you have noticed that when you build yourself a floating island, it casts a shadow, and mobs start spawning in this shadow. My suggestion for fixing this problem is that an exception would be added to the code that tells mobs not to spawn in shadows cast by blocks that are't connected to the blocks that have the shadow being cast over them. There would also be a new gamerule, islandShadowsProtectZombies, that decides whether island-generated shadows protect zombies and skeletons from daylight (turned on by default). The other annoying thing about floating islands is that when the island is over land, and you build a waterfall, the bottom tends to just be an annoying/ugly-looking splat of flowing water. My suggestion for this is that natural-looking bodies of water have no choice but to generate under waterfalls from natural floating islands.
There would also be a couple of new biomes that are pretty much made of floating islands. First of all, there would be the most common of them all: floating mountains. This would generate just like extreme hills, except with no grass, trees, or dirt, and the water doesn't freeze. Next there would be floating plains, which have 2 variants: normal plains and savannah. Then there would be the second-rarest: the floating desert, which would have 3 variants: normal, red desert, and mesa. Finally, the rarest of them all would be the floating forest, which strangely has the greatest number of variants. There's jungle, rainforest, oak, birch, taiga, dark oak, and mushroom. Then, each of these variants would each have 2 subvariants, one over land and one over the ocean. Overall, if you cont each subvariant as a different biome, that's 26 new biomes! Villages can generate on these islands.
One thing that could generate in any sky island biome would be a new temple, called the sky temple, which will have significantly better loot than desert and jungle temples, but nowhere near as good as End City Dungeons. One item that will always generate in at least one chest in the temple is an enchanted book with a new enchantment (I don't currently have a name for this enchantment. Please suggest names). This enchantment must be combined with a flint & steel (I'll explain in the next paragraph). This special enchantment will cause the flint & steel to produce a blue flame that doesn't spread or go out (unless snuffed or dowsed with water). however, it will still light entities, including the ones that are immune to fire, and deal 50% more damage than normal fire.
Finally, a new dimension: the Sky. My current idea for the portal is that it would be chiseled quartz, arranged exactly like a nether portal. Then you would need a flint & steel with the special enchantment that you found in the last paragraph, and then light the portal exactly the way you would light a normal nether portal (which, by the way, the enchanted flint & steel can also do). When you go through the portal, you will find yourself inside a newly spawned return portal (exactly like the nether portal). The Sky is basically the overworld, except it's made entirely out of floating islands, with nothing but the void below them, the first island that you spawn on being about the size of the main End island. Each floating island is a different overworld biome, with islands that are close together tending to have the same biome as one another. Normal overworld mobs will spawn here. Now, some may think that this is all there is to tell about a new dimension, but I haven't even gotten to the fun part!...
Once the Sky has begun to generate (when you go through the Sky portal), the system will start a timer. Initially, the Sky won't generate any new villages. However, once three Minecraft days have passed, the system will check to make sure that there are no players within render distance of the portal. Then it will spawn a village (basically, the villagers are colonizing the Sky). This will not overwrite existing blocks, and it will steer clear of player-made structures. After this, newly generated land will generate villages just like the Overworld. Another thing that will happen with the timer is 2 new gamerules, skyMovementSpeed and skyMovementDirection, both numeral gamerules, where skyMovementSpeed is decimal friendly, and both are 0 by default. As soon as you step into the Sky dimension, the coordinates will start to move out of sync with the Overworld, by the number of blocks per second that you put in for the gamerule skyMovementSpeed, in the direction with the numeral value that was put in for skyMovementDirection. Also, the Sky clouds won't appear to move, as the islands are moving with them. Basically, if you have skyMovementDirection on 1 and skyMovementSpeed on 1, and stay in the Sky for exactly one Minecraft day, then return to the Overworld, you'll come through a new portal 1,200 blocks west of your original portal. However, you do not have to worry about drifting out of the world, as when a coordinate in the Sky passes the world border, the new portal will simply be up against the border, on the correct side, and when a coordinate in one dimension equals 30,000,000 in one dimension, it will reset itself to -30,000,000, or vice versa. Don't worry if you don't like this, though. As I said before, there's the skyMovementSpeed gamerule, which defaults to 0, so it won't move at all.
Just saying, if this did get added into Minecraft, I'm confident that most of it will be enjoyed by the majority of the community. As for the Sky dimension, I have absolutely no idea what kind of support it will get.
Well, I like all of it except for the movement of the sky biome. You would lose your Overworld home awfully fast that way. Plus, what would happen when youi leave the portal, and then go back in later? Would you be in basically a whole new dimension, cause the sky dimension part you were in floated away? Or would you go back?
The Wyrm Watches. The Wyrm knows. The Wyrm reads. The Wyrm Animates too! Check me out at the WyrmWorks Channel on Youtube!

You should join Brazil on the Total War Minecraft server - 167.114.100.168:43841! Includes many Minecraft Forum members including myself, Selene011, Genius_idiot, Gamelord, and more!
Don't you mean dimension?
Well, the idea was that you would have to choose whether to live in the Sky or the Overworld, but now that you mention it, I guess it's not really incredibly fair on a no cheats world. I still think the gamerule skyMovementSpeed should exist, but it should be 0 instead of 1.
I will go ahead and edit that in.
And no, you wouldn't be in a new dimension.