I dont know why Terrain has gotten so bad, but it just seems to be getting worse. Theres choppy areas where the stone is near the surface or IS the surface making grass choppy and ugly. This use to be rare but now its all over. Grasslands is full of surface caves with giant gaping holes all over, while caves are tangled giant messes. Snow biomes seem to love spawning next to jungle and desert biomes which looks horrible, and the beach fix trails sand up mountains. There is never any maps like the old map Glacier, the massive cliffs and caverns.
These are just the few things that have driven me to the point of not wanting to play minecraft like I use to. I really do love minecraft but I havent liked it as much since all the updates from 1.7.3. There just isnt any places that I look at and think "I want to build there" I always end up going into creative mode trying to patch the terrain to look nicer.
The Terrain needs an overhaul or at least some serious patching to fix things before they get any worse, and certain biomes should only be surrounded by certain other biomes (like no snow near jungles or desert....)
I'd like to hear others opinions about world generation right now, things you like or dislike. I understand sometimes some of the things I stated doesnt show up, but my client seems to love generating all this stuff as close as possible to spawn.
I don't like to criticize--the terrain in Minecraft still looks attractive, and the dynamic generation keeps things interesting--but at some level I have to agree. I notice a lack of the grand landscape features that impressed me when I started playing (which wasn't that long ago). The huge arches of stone, and valleys between mountains, etc.. There are still some big hills, but they tend to have a more predictable and less interesting shape. The landscape just isn't as striking as it used to be. It's a shame, it would have been awesome to have the new, raised maximum build height on top of those old hills.
That said, I love the jungle, the rivers, the crevasses, and the nether fortresses. I like that I now occasionally find buildings, and odd structures on the landscape. (And I don't mind the exposed stone I've seen, especially in the jungles and desserts where it looks good.)
So what can be done? Well, for one thing, as you point out, it would really help if the snow biome(s) were less often parked right next to desserts and jungles. It's just too discordant. They might also buffer the snowy forests by putting regions of snowy plains around them, easing the transition (and expanding the cold regions so you don't have such tiny micro-climates).
The other major thing I'd like to see is a return of some of the wilder topography. That needn't be everywhere--I'm from the midwest, I like prairies--but in some of the mountain regions they should really cut loose. How about some genuinely huge and interesting spires, and some wide, deep valleys? What about rings of wooded hills? What about some overhanging rocky crags?
I don't like to criticize--the terrain in Minecraft still looks attractive, and the dynamic generation keeps things interesting--but at some level I have to agree. I notice a lack of the grand landscape features that impressed me when I started playing (which wasn't that long ago). The huge arches of stone, and valleys between mountains, etc.. There are still some big hills, but they tend to have a more predictable and less interesting shape. The landscape just isn't as striking as it used to be. It's a shame, it would have been awesome to have the new, raised maximum build height on top of those old hills.
That said, I love the jungle, the rivers, the crevasses, and the nether fortresses. I like that I now occasionally find buildings, and odd structures on the landscape. (And I don't mind the exposed stone I've seen, especially in the jungles and desserts where it looks good.)
So what can be done? Well, for one thing, as you point out, it would really help if the snow biome(s) were less often parked right next to desserts and jungles. It's just too discordant. They might also buffer the snowy forests by putting regions of snowy plains around them, easing the transition (and expanding the cold regions so you don't have such tiny micro-climates).
The other major thing I'd like to see is a return of some of the wilder topography. That needn't be everywhere--I'm from the midwest, I like prairies--but in some of the mountain regions they should really cut loose. How about some genuinely huge and interesting spires, and some wide, deep valleys? What about rings of wooded hills? What about some overhanging rocky crags?
I dont want the exposed stone completely removed, because it works as nice quarries, though I think that these are the result of surface caves trying to spawn over ground and unable to it just takes out the top grass layer. Caves have gotten out of hand in most of the maps I generate, just massive gaping caverns with floating stone and no ground to walk on. I've had caverns start just two blocks under a grass land and reach down to lava in an orgy of caves. >.< They really do need to look at the world generating code and fix it up some for vanilla.
The biggest complaint I have is that every level generated seems to be very similar. No matter what the seed, it's almost as if you're playing on the same map in a different area. Mountains/hills all look similar, there are fewer visually striking, unique-looking formations to be found.
One of the things I loved about earlier versions was that you could get vastly different levels in which the seed had a great deal of influence on the types of formations you'd see. It seems to me seeds don't do as much nowadays.
These are just the few things that have driven me to the point of not wanting to play minecraft like I use to. I really do love minecraft but I havent liked it as much since all the updates from 1.7.3. There just isnt any places that I look at and think "I want to build there" I always end up going into creative mode trying to patch the terrain to look nicer.
The Terrain needs an overhaul or at least some serious patching to fix things before they get any worse, and certain biomes should only be surrounded by certain other biomes (like no snow near jungles or desert....)
I'd like to hear others opinions about world generation right now, things you like or dislike. I understand sometimes some of the things I stated doesnt show up, but my client seems to love generating all this stuff as close as possible to spawn.
That said, I love the jungle, the rivers, the crevasses, and the nether fortresses. I like that I now occasionally find buildings, and odd structures on the landscape. (And I don't mind the exposed stone I've seen, especially in the jungles and desserts where it looks good.)
So what can be done? Well, for one thing, as you point out, it would really help if the snow biome(s) were less often parked right next to desserts and jungles. It's just too discordant. They might also buffer the snowy forests by putting regions of snowy plains around them, easing the transition (and expanding the cold regions so you don't have such tiny micro-climates).
The other major thing I'd like to see is a return of some of the wilder topography. That needn't be everywhere--I'm from the midwest, I like prairies--but in some of the mountain regions they should really cut loose. How about some genuinely huge and interesting spires, and some wide, deep valleys? What about rings of wooded hills? What about some overhanging rocky crags?
I dont want the exposed stone completely removed, because it works as nice quarries, though I think that these are the result of surface caves trying to spawn over ground and unable to it just takes out the top grass layer. Caves have gotten out of hand in most of the maps I generate, just massive gaping caverns with floating stone and no ground to walk on. I've had caverns start just two blocks under a grass land and reach down to lava in an orgy of caves. >.< They really do need to look at the world generating code and fix it up some for vanilla.
The biggest complaint I have is that every level generated seems to be very similar. No matter what the seed, it's almost as if you're playing on the same map in a different area. Mountains/hills all look similar, there are fewer visually striking, unique-looking formations to be found.
One of the things I loved about earlier versions was that you could get vastly different levels in which the seed had a great deal of influence on the types of formations you'd see. It seems to me seeds don't do as much nowadays.