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So, that took no time at all.

I recently mentioned considering starting another hardcore world, but in truth I've been loosely considering this for a while now (a number of days seriously, or as long as a couple weeks initially).

Those who know me know I seldom start new worlds, as I traditionally tend to stick to worlds longer term. Those who didn't know that, now you do! This also meant hardcore works against me, but this year I made my first attempt at hardcore despite playing for eleven years now. That attempt is still ongoing, although I've been posting updates in the catch all thread instead of its own. I put some restrictions on that world, but I decided to start another solely to play under some additional restrictions. That is the unique purpose of this world. My desire was always to start a new hardcore world if/when I failed in the first, but given I'm rather established and hungry for some new challenges, I decided to start this one.

This time, I'll put updates in a dedicated thread. And, unlike the first hardcore world, I won't wait until I have something "meaningful to show" before showing updates/pictures. Namely, I was absent in getting pictures or logging occurrences early on in my first hardcore world. The reason was because I felt it was pointless given how routinely typical and uneventful the start of a world is. Yet it's precisely that reason I'm going to get a lot of pictures in the early days here. What I lacked the most in that other world is logging some of those early things, and I wonder if I might not be unaware of where my "place of origins" in that world was had I done this.

So, welcome to the start of the adventures in Gaia! The name was chosen because I used a spin on the name "Terra" for my original world, called "Crafterra", and then my second world was called "Terra". My other hardcore world had no name at first and then got renamed to "Azura" for the mountain my village was settled near. I just gave this one the name "Gaia" to play off the other common name of "Terra". No deeper reason than that.

Before getting into the actual story of the world, here's the list of restrictions I'm playing under. I'm starting this under 1.20.1, which is the current version.

1. The world is hardcore. Obviously.

2. I am not choosing a given seed. I am also going with what the first random attempt gives me for a seed, regardless of what the results are.

3. I am not allowed to use third party applications or sources to gain in-game information I shouldn't have. No map programs like UnMined, no websites like Chunk base, and so on.

4. Extending from that, I cannot access the F3 menu in game, nor use debug features. Seeing coordinates, the biome I'm in, hitboxes, checking pie charts for what is loaded, etc., etc. is all off limits.

5. I am not allowed to use "farms". For my definition, this means something constructed to automatically/passively gain me blocks/items/resources. Of course planting crops is allowed, but constructing something to give me things is just, in my eyes, using creative to gift myself things in another way.

I played with all those restrictions in my original hardcore world. Here are the additional ones.

1. I am not allowed to trade with villagers! The exception is wandering traders. This will be a massive change on its own as it makes access to enchantments harder, and primarily makes access to other things (arrows and golden carrots namely) harder. I don't want to get a farmer leveled up and have it remove my need to farm animals/crops regularly. As for enchantments...

2. It doesn't matter! Because enchantments are not allowed! No sharpness, no protection, no mending! This will encourage me to do recurring gameplay loops of mining for resources for gear. It will make netherite impractical to obtain, but that just makes things more challenging when I need to rely on diamond. What about elytra being useless? About that...

3. No elytra! Somewhat related, but...

4. No shulker boxes.. These two will discourage me from wanting to attempt an end city (I can still do it for its own sake if I want), but I want to remove these "modern era" changes from this particular world.

5. No totems of undying. Shields are allowed.

Lastly...

6. No potions. Fire resistance and night vision potions, but also water breathing, are just so broken. That first largely invalidates the nether. No damage invincibility "cheats" for me.

With that said, I'm also sticking to the vanilla resource pack, and not using mods (besides OptiFine, and solely for its anti-aliasing feature). I have disabled OptiFine's zoom feature, as well.

I'm using a few things from vanilla tweaks. Two are cosmetic, two are somewhat gameplay related. The cosmetic ones are item stitching (removes the one pixel gap in held items) and "cloud fog fix" which I never knew existed but is lovely. I always played with clouds off specifically because they look awful blending into the fog edge but this fixes that! The other two are an anti-enderman griefing data pack, and "hardcore darkness" (fitting name?) another which makes light levels of 0 underground actually dark. Another small added challenge.

Without any further ado, here's Gaia! (This first update will be picture heavy!)

Here's my world selection menu. Time to give you a friend!



Naming the world and setting the difficulty. This is also my first time actually using the new world creation menu (for a world that isn't temporary anyway).





I browsed the "game rules" to see if I wanted to change anything. I did not, but I noticed this option. In an older world, I had to use commands to rectify damage caused by an attempt to remove enderman ability to pick up and place blocks, and that limit being able to be raised would have been welcome back then.



Data packs are empty for now, as the data pack folder resides in the world save folder, which doesn't yet exist...



So, random seed, using whatever we get, and otherwise all default. Here we go...



And here we are...



I'm satisfied thus far. It's not immediately in a forest. And I see a savanna biome, hinting at a temperate/warm area. Typically, this would be what I'd consider good.

I turn to my left without moving and panic.



I close the world, not because of that, but to set the enderman data pack.

Then I go to actually start. A personalized icon will come later, but first there was one, and now there is formally two.



Back in the world I see this looking around still from spawn. It's far more interesting than the spawn in my other hardcore world (even if that has a pretty substantial cave opening near it). I also notice a jungle nearby.



I then head towards the initial direction I was facing, and see a ruined shipwreck. And then, this...



More panic! I'm nick-naming them the spawn campers.

Anyway, I have three things I need to address. I need to find sheep for a bed, animals for initial food, and coal for cooking said food and torches (to later go caving for more coal and initial iron). I gather one of the trees to get my necessary first tool, a wooden pickaxe. I then turn around...



That will make a good place for gathering my initial stone.



Which lets me make my initial stone tools and a furnace.



Now I set out to find animals for food and, hopefully, a bed so I don't have to hole up for the first night(s) like in my other hardcore world.





May both sides of your pillows always be warm, and may you always fall into that gap you built over!

Lovely flower forest beyond, though.

I head left towards the plains, hoping to find animals for food and/or a bed.

Later edit: There is a sheep in the foreground of that above picture and I missed it playing! Leave it to me to notice flowers in the distance but not something important right in front of me. Oh well, it was just one and I would have needed more anyway.





A lot of chickens, but I leave them. I'm after cows or pigs more. And very soon I find more cows.





And also pigs...



And then... cows, pigs, and sheep! Yes! This girl is not sleeping in a cave the first night this time! So now I need coal, and maybe I'll find some civilization in these plains.





I then decide to check the sky for the trajectory and location of the sun, to try and keep tabs on where I'm heading. I see it's a bit past midday, which I expected, and that the sun is heading down here, which is the direction I came from. This means I'm heading East, and spawned in facing South (I'm guessing this is always the case, but never noticed it?).



I keep heading East, and then see this...



There it is. This seed is giving me some luck.

I gather a bit more cows across the river and head towards it.



I decide to craft my bed, and then introduce myself to the locals.



With the crafting interface out of the way, I notice the subtle change in brightness, as night draws near.



I go to the village center and place my bed. I see this to the South. This will give me a large boost to my initial supply of wheat.



I see a rare nitwit, which, yes, are rare in my own experience. These two are also "stuck" here, the one trying to pathfind to the house above I would guess. I also notice the tulips (the tulips!) which are my favorite Minecraft flower and I will undoubtedly be using. I have some locations to gather these from, already.



The sun is setting, the stars are coming out, and the first day has ended. Tome to sleep.



I didn't get a picture of it, but while attempting to sleep, I evicted a villager. From my own bed! That didn't take long. I supplied my own bed so as to not take theirs, and they take mine! Rude. That wheat is so mine...



Such concludes my first day. While I won't make updates each day and won't limit them to one day, I will stop here.

My next goals are to find coal, maybe do some shallow caving for more coal and iron, and then embark on exploring for a place to settle.

Well, glad I didn't go to bed yet. New journal thread! I'm hyped for this.

"I'm satisfied thus far. It's not immediately in a forest." HA. Sorry. Funny to me because that was 100% my thing whenever I made a new world in any version of Minecraft from the Adventure Update onwards.

-Is spawn a forest biome? y/n.
>Y
-delete world
-goto start

Looks like a great starting area, other than the pillager outposts everywhere, grr, hate those guys. I'll be watching your explorations with interest as I'm still not very familiar with 1.18+ overworld terrain.

Quote from Zeno410»

How do you find time to do this much exploring? My first day is usually like: chop a tree, make an axe, chop a few more trees, where can I build a shack, put up the shack, dig out some stone for a furnace, start roasting some charcoal, what it's dark already? Time always seems so tight that first day.

Spawn illagers with enchantments denied? Oh, that'll be fun! Would you allow a fished or otherwise found enchantment?

I don't build a shelter right away, nor did I gather more than one tree. I usually don't even use charcoal and just look for coal instead. So once I have my initial tools and stone for a furnace, off I go to see the world. My next task is "find animals for food/bed" so it just so happens I "explore" early. I almost never settle right at/near spawn.

And no enchantments aren't allowed regardless of the source, so no fishing, loot, or enchant table sourced ones are allowed either.

I didn't think of whether I'd allow myself to take enchanted ones found as loot, and then remove the enchant before using it or not, but I'm retroactively disallowing that as well. In reality it won't matter for me much because I'll probably only find such stuff after I have diamond anyway, but in the case I find it earlier, I won't allow it.

Quote from Brackenburrow»

Well, glad I didn't go to bed yet. New journal thread! I'm hyped for this.


"I'm satisfied thus far. It's not immediately in a forest." HA. Sorry. Funny to me because that was 100% my thing whenever I made a new world in any version of Minecraft from the Adventure Update onwards.

-Is spawn a forest biome? y/n.
>Y
-delete world
-goto start

Looks like a great starting area, other than the pillager outposts everywhere, grr, hate those guys. I'll be watching your explorations with interest as I'm still not very familiar with 1.18+ overworld terrain.

Yeah, the lack of a forest start was good on its own. I can ignore the pillager outpost anyway so it was no big deal, and once I am ready, I have at least once I am aware of now.

I'm glad it excites you. I actually still feel my bad my story in my oldest world is still being procrastinated on, but I felt like as long as I'm showing something of whatever world I'm active in, regardless of which world it is, it sort of makes up for it.

And you might like upcoming updates. I played a few more in-game days and there's some neat stuff/generation I find.

My major next goals are to get iron equipment (armor, sword, shield, and three primary tools at least), accumulate more food and coal (some stacks, at least), and then adventure for a place that I feel like calling home.

After checking the village (namely, to gather any hay blocks as well as check any chests), I basically plan to do all of that while exploring for a location to settle. I figure it's better that way as that is likely the goal that will take longest, so I may as well do the other things along the way instead of focusing on them on their own. I'll probably find many animals and cave openings for opportunities of those other things while exploring. So if you're wondering why I don't just branch mine down, that's why.

Likewise, this one will be picture heavy again, largely of landscapes as I'm exploring, despite the early days being mundane and typical. Then again, maybe not? I figured my first day was typical and I already got asked how I explore so early, so that's part of why I'm showing what I think might be typical. Maybe it's not to someone else, and showing these things explains "why did I do this" and "what led me to go this direction". It explains my motive, which sometimes might be more important than showing major accomplishments.

I start the day by gathering the wheat nearby. I'm doing them a favor by clearing the path?



I check my first chest, in a leather workers building, and find... one item, but it's useful at least, if marginally and temporarily.



I find this very neat area just outside. I've never made a waterfall (well... not counting an underground/internal one that I don't really count as one in another world), and this would be one I'd love to develop if I were settling here. I don't plan to, though.



One thought this raises is that without enchantments, even mundane things like terraforming will require not only a lot more time, but cost a lot of tools/resources.

I see this ocean ruins off the shore in the distance, but I don't go for it.



A bit back in the village, I see this. There seems to be a number of cave openings, many with villagers in them, perhaps stuck. I see some coal, as well. There's also a golem down there, so I feel safe there's no immediate major risk about to surface.



I then search the village for whatever other chests there may be.



Interestingly, the emeralds have low value since I won't be allowing myself to trade, but I take them anyway. Given no enchantments means recurring tool crafting, this also means if I ever do make a beacon in this world, every little bit might help. Plus leaving emeralds feels... wrong.

There were a couple of others, but just typical stuff (saplings, potatoes, apples, and wheat, namely).

I come across a librarian, and while I can't trade with him (even if I could, I couldn't afford it yet), I decided to see what was on offer.



On the other side of the village, I come across... this! Wow. I've never seen this before.



It even had dirt and stone inside piled over a bed. With the window spaces being "waterlogged" it meant removing blocks from the other side of them actually had water sourcing in from the two spots there were windows.

Unfortunately, I'm not here to invest massive time and effort into fixing a house I'll leave, so... I leave it.

It didn't open up into a massive cave like I thought... not here anyway.



There was a small spot at the bottom where water flowed into one, and I heard some zombies down there.

I gather the coal on the surface, which exposes some lapis lazuli. Useless to me in this world (and borderline useless to me normally anyway).

I then hear zombie harming sounds, meaning there's cause for concern.



I neglected running at it given the golem I saw in view, only to realize the golem was stuck. I must have taken this right as it died anyway, given the flesh at its feet.

I then dig a spot to let the golem, and a few villagers, out.



As the sun is setting, I sleep again, and begin the next day.

While some food is cooking, I decide to explore a bit outside the village, first to the East more.





There it is, my first mountain, and a very pretty spot in general.



Not where I'll settle, though. I turn back and decide to head Soutwest from the village this time (bringing me a bit South of spawn and the pillager outpost there). I come across my first "more than tiny" cave opening.



As well as this a bit beyond it.



Neat raised terrain, an opening directly in front of me, and... a ton of horses gathered at a shipwreck (yes, another one, and this an early mention that this is only the beginning because structures are overly common in modern Minecraft). Maybe the ship was carrying them? Maybe it wrecked and they went to it to eat whatever was on it? Who knows.

Here's that chasm.



The shipwreck ends up being totally buried, and because I neither have the shovel nor the desire to dig it out, I leave it for now.



I again head back to the village (my bed, crafting table, and stove smelting food is still there) and see this along the way, a very boring old style ravine.



It does have coal, which is useful for me, but I avoid going for it.

I now decide to head North from the village, towards a forest. Finally, a forest!



I grab the pictured coal, see some animals a bit East, and head to get them. Soon I'm overlooking the same area I saw the first time I left the village (just North of the area with the mountains above).



I go atop then and find... *sigh*



While it's a very unique village, I'm just exhausted of structures at this point. I could probably stand between this village and the first one I found and see them both (the "mountain" notwithstanding). The cave openings spark my interest, though. Easy to access, shallow iron, maybe?

My thoughts are interrupted by zombie moaning.



While it's on fire like the first one, and while I could run, I decide to take on my first adversary in this world. I'm in full leather armor at this point (the tunic was found, and the rest was crafted from leather I got killing cows I came across for food). I also try to get a picture of what might be the hit that defeats him... but instead I get get hit, set on fire, and lose around half my health. I'm not being careful enough.



It ends up dying to burn damage in the end, not even to me.

Here's another spot showing I'm just North of that mountain above.



I head back to the first village to gather my bed and other things before progressing, and on the way back, I do find my first iron. Only one, but also more coal.



While back at the village, I peak into a few caves (the one with a golem) to check it out.





Mostly a dead end, although I hear zombies (to the "Left" of this picture) so there's undoubtedly another cave running parallel or so. But I'm not after caving too deep just yet.

I smelt my lone iron...



...And put in the last bit of food and wait for it to smelt before embarking on my exploration. While cooking the last of the food, I peak into the spot where the waterfall was.



There's not much to go with here unless I go down into a deep and narrow split, so I take the bit of resources on this top area (coal) and leave.

I ring the bell to "say goodbye" and off I go...



To the other village not far away...



I check into the caves and do some exploring, hoping to find more iron. Unfortunately, it's mostly coal, but a lot of it. I'm at a higher altitude, after all.

Then I see my first real panic.



I end up taking it out, which ends up giving me the advancement as it my first mob kill (the earlier zombie one died to burning).



I hope this isn't some cryptic sign a creeper will be what gets me in the end in this world.

I find a bit more more iron, and head back to make a shield and a pickaxe. Until I get iron armor (and even after that), this will help me.



I decide to explore around, hoping to find easy cave openings with safe, shallow iron.





A bit Northeast, I see this...



And between me and the shore to head towards it, I see more iron an an exposed spot. So I take it.



The ruined portal has two gold blocks, and I'm not about to object to those. So I mine some netherack, fill in some lava, and grab them.



The actual chest is disappointing for me.



The glistening watermelons are useless. I wouldn't take them normally, anyway, as inventory space is at a premium until I settle. the gold armor and tool things are... gold, but better than what I have, but all are enchanted. One armor piece has a curse anyway, and the leggings I could have taken if not for disallowing myself to.

I take the flint for future arrows and leave the rest. The Gold blocks alone were well worth it.

I head a bit more East, and then see... what's that? Pretty place!



I head towards it to find it's actually small. I forgot beehives can generate on these.



Here's how small it is.



A note to add here is I went to get a picture from atop one of the trees, and got lazy coming down and took a fall. I, again, lost approximately half my health. That was my harsh realization that fall damage (and/or a skeleton/creeper involved with a fall) was going to be a dire risk in this world without enchantments. I better shape up and be careful like I was early on in my first world, or this one won't last long. I worry I'm specifically being reckless knowing I have two hardcore worlds concurrently. Not good.

A bit Northeast and I see the edges of more of these pretty trees. Along with... *sigh*



Yet... another... village. So I might as well explore it. This is the first time I've seen the "village "in" a cherry blossom biome", albeit the cherry blossom biome is again tiny.





I do see this gorgeous and massive one beyond it though!



It's here that I realize I don't want to settle on a mountain in a cherry biome again in this world though. I therefore start heading back towards spawn, knowing there's warmer biomes there, and I've thus far been finding temperate (maybe temperate bordering cold, given the taiga near the mountains?).

One the way back, I check one of the many cave openings in the hopes of more iron (please!?) and find my first massive underground cavern.



Nooooope, not in leather with next to no torches or tools.

I realized it a bit earlier, but it's here that I'll mention it. I intended to play with the "hardcore darkness" tweak from vanilla tweaks, which makes stuff absent of light totally dark. Unfortunately, you can see it's not in effect. I'm using the same profile as my other hardcore world, but I made sure I swapped to it. I did recall the tooltip for that tweak mentioning it might not operate with OptiFine or Sodium, and that appears to be what's happening. I try disabling "render regions" (most other stuff like fast render and such is already off), but no change. I'm unwilling to go without OptiFine because of anti-aliasing, so... oh well. While I'd like to play with it, given how much more dangerous caving will be with lesser gear, and having to do it far more often, maybe that would too extreme for it to start with anyway.

Moving on...

I head back towards the "interesting old extreme hills-esque" area, and it starts raining. Thankfully not a thunderstorm, but I'm being more alert regardless.



Another large cave opening.



I've now looped "around" (to the South of) the pillager outpost at spawn, and arrived at the savanna that was pictured in the first picture of this world when I spawned in. Good to know that if I had went this way, I also would have found sheep.



Hm... survival island settlement? I do want to settle at a village, though. the ability to have a spot safe from pillager spawning is important, plus I just like living among a village anyway (and not having to transport villagers there, which is a huge task early on in a world).



I head back towards spawn with the intent to explore directly North of it (where I saw the jungle). Maybe I'll find more savanna and a village. Maybe I'll settle in a savanna village in this world. I come across yet another shipwreck, and within sight of the one pictured at spawn (which I never looted yet). As I've said, structure frequency is absolutely ridiculous.



So I head beyond this, and find the jungle also has a mangrove swap. Neat, a source for mud bricks if I ever need them, which I've found I like.



But... it promptly catches ablaze. I swear it wasn't me!



I proceed through the jungle, although along a river and on a side that is sparse jungle, so I'm not yet in the dense of it. This is nice because I've thought of building with bamboo for my settlement here. I haven't done that yet and it'd give a chance to try something new.







Once the river opens up into a savanna, I find... you guessed it.

It is right near this, though, which is a gorgeous view.



I consider if I should settle here. It's much closer to spawn than I've ever settled (outside my second world, which had the seed scouted beforehand so I don't count it), and for whatever reason it makes it feel awkward... but I consider settling here regardless. I'm not a fan of savanna villages normally (and I outright dislike acacia wood), but a flat "Green" area (read as, no savanna), ideally in a sparse jungle but even just plains, near warm biomes (jungle, savanna, or desert) would fit. And... this isn't a sparse jungle but it matches otherwise.

I could "rebuild" here.





I am very much considering doing so.

Wow, that is a lovely looking waterfall. The submerged house, on the other hand, is just funny. This is why you don't build on flood plains people!

...and seeing the pic of the mangrove swamp, I just realized that I could have been using mud as a decorative block in my Tree Spirit build. It was added 1.19, so I do have access to it. I've literally never laid hands on the stuff as yet. I must find out where I've put that bottle...

Village, village, shipwreck, shipwreck, ruined portal, village, shipwreck, village... Ugh. Minecraft really is cluttered with free loot these days. I bet you'll find a million drowned settlements the moment you stick your head in the ocean too.

I like the flat plains by the jungle, it'd be easy to build on and jungle's a convenient wood to grow in bulk.

Quote from Brackenburrow»

Village, village, shipwreck, shipwreck, ruined portal, village, shipwreck, village... Ugh. Minecraft really is cluttered with free loot these days.

Spoiler alert...

It gets "worse" in the next update.

Quote from Brackenburrow»

I like the flat plains by the jungle, it'd be easy to build on and jungle's a convenient wood to grow in bulk.

Haha, just wait.

I'd normally definitely prefer a flatter area due to it being what I prefer anyway, but also to minimize time and effort in the case of this world especially.

Remember, no enchantments means slower work and recurring resource use for tools to do so. And I'm also further disincentivized from putting work in due to the extra risk I face in losing it here.

But I have plans already. I just can't say them yet without spoiling it. Probably tomorrow.

Quote from Zeno410»

I would probably have settled in that first waterfall.

The waterfall was super interesting, but I wanted more than "plains village right by spawn". I guess its in my nature to survey and explore a bit to try and find a more preferred location to settle. Perhaps part of the ritual even.

Quote from Zeno410»

The Jungle looks good and it's interesting as marginally dangerous and rather unusual, but there's one hazard - big Jungle Giants are very dangerous to chop in hardcore.

Like said above, just wait. While I haven't yet started building (and it could be a bit before I formally do), plans are definitely forming already and I'm excited because it will entail new stuff from what I've done before, and I can share more soon.

Also, I'm not too terrified of large jungle trees. I don't tend to build with jungle wood a lot normally, but I might use it here. I definitely want to incorporate the new bamboo into things somehow though (and I think there's even two colors of it).

More exploration! Have I not decided on a spot to settle? have I done so and explored anyway? Who knows, even I don't know what I'm doing!

I set up my... home (?) for now and got to cooking some stuff. I also needed to clear my inventory, badly.



I also had enough to make my first iron armor piece (and my forth iron thing overall, after a shield and two pickaxes).



I'm mismatched... but mismatched and more defended is better than more likely to be dead.

So my goal is to get more iron, and I figure I'll scout the surrounding area to see if I do want to settle here after all.

Just North from the village, I see... another structure.



I make a note of it, but for whatever reason (disgust with structures?) I don't go to it just yet. I head to my right onto shore and head East. This looks nice and expansive.



Let's get a better look. I love savanna plateaus, by the way.





I like it. Then I turn around... (looking back towards where I came.)



This just displaced right next to the village as my preferred spot. While the sparse jungle strip is much thinner than I'd like, at the same time I also find it neat. And a jungle along a river with a flat open area opposite it has always looked nice. Flat Green land with warm biomes nearby, and a lovely raised plateau? It lacks a village, and it'd be work to get a villager here... but it's not outside being practical.

I've already changed my mind on where I settle. This is why I like surveying my immediate area. Will the area "around" here look nice? I'll be running through the around areas a lot so it better.

I go to climb around the plateau and yet another zombie climbs out of the cracked ground to come after me. This is becoming comically routine.



I head a bit South around the plateau, so I'm now directly East of the village, and I see this. Yes, yes, another structure, although I don't mind this one too much. I'll have some neighbors though, I guess. This is looking East...



Looking West from the same spot...



The above spot I've thus far decided to settle on is sort of a bit North between the two (with said plateau and some distance between, so I'm not overly worried about them).

I decide to head a bit more East, noticing I'll have a lot of cows/pigs (and others) in the area when I need to first bulk up on food supply.

I also still keep an eye out for any easy iron.



Just a bit further, I see this.



Note that when I first started the world, I basically made a trail East from spawn. I eventually ran into some cherry grove biomes. I'm now making an Eastward trail a bit North of that trail, so I must be getting close to being North from where I saw them at the end of that trail before.

I plan to make a map of the areas around spawn, though not as big in this world because of the lack of elytra.

I again head back towards the village, and remember the shipwreck might carry some iron. So I head back, and note this between the pillager outpost and the plateau. I've never seen this exposed with water before.



Just a bit West and we find our doomed ship constructed from two different shipyards.



I'd say I definitely get lucky on this one!



This has two other chests, one with some food (carrots) and the other with paper that I also take, but nothing noteworthy.

Back on shore and I explore juuuust a hair more to the North and see this. Normally it wouldn't be too thrilling to me as old ravines are just not exceptional.





The the flat and wide bottom, opening to the surface, and what might be a decent cave opening on one end has my interest. I'm not going in now, but I plan to check it out later.

Back at the village, i realize with the iron nuggets I've also accumulated, I have enough for some more iron armor pieces. Not quite a full set, but... close.



We'll go with a Master_Caver approach and go sans helmet until I get more, haha. Besides, the tiara has to be good for like, what, half an armor point?

But before I set off again, I realize I also have some gold, and a gold helmet will eventually be crafted for later nether trips anyway, so...



We're going mismatch again. Once I have my diamond I'll more match my skin clothes color.

So I decide to now head back to spawn since there is still that shipwreck there. Why even mine for initial iron when structures are so common and just give it to you?

On the way, instead of following the same river (which goes South, then West, then South to spawn), I just head directly South and intent to cut diagonally across land. Any guesses as to what I find?



I take the gold block but the chest is again not noteworthy. Well, it had some okay Gold armor but... all enchanted. Oh well.

I then come across this only because I hear it, but not see it.



It took me so long to get one of these in the other world! I break some grass but only get two seeds. Of course it doesn't work. I break more for three more seeds, and the final one gets it for me.



I might not yet have full iron armor, but I have an attack parrot!

We sneak along shore past spawn to avoid the pillager outpost, and come to the destination on sundown.

Immediately during sunrise, I find my first of a wandering pillager patrol. Funny enough, juts a bit outside one of their own outposts.



Fearing for their lives against my bird (I mean... because they didn't even see me), they head North towards spawn, into the ocean for whatever reason. I advance timidly and check the ship.

Only one type of thing, but it's exactly what I need.



And two more trims in another chest. While I can't use enchantments to keep armor forever, I have them, so I may as well use them. I'll have to think later on if I find netherite worth going for on armor (if I do, I won't for tools).

Instead of heading back to the village, for whatever reason something is calling my this way.



This is a bit Southeast, and is the other side of that "neat looking extreme hills-esque" place in my prior post. The one with the other shipwreck, that was very buried. I considered going to it, but I didn't. I did go this way anyway though.

I come across yet another flower forest (a pleasant amount of these) and gather some tulips finally. The forest is small is opens into plains. And then there's... of course...



What truly catches my eye is the ice spikes. For those keeping attention, spawn is warm/temperate. Just East of spawn is temperate and may have signs of moderate cold a bit further that way (that, or the taiga was just there by way of being on a mountain). West and North of spawn is warm (savannas, mangrove swamps, jungles, and warm oceans, but not yet a desert). And now I'm not too South and find ice spikes.

That cooould be all three climate zones running diagonally Northeast/Southwest? Either way, seems I do have all three primary zones near enough to spawn.



Those are mountains to the Southwest of the village, and just further beyond where it is rendering to, it transitions to frozen plains.



I didn't explore too far past it. Half of the reason was I didn't want to get too far, but the other reason was performance. For whatever reason, I've found whatever OptiFine does to achieve anti-aliasing has serious performance implications when ice blocks are involved. It's consistently reproducible around ice only, and when anti-aliasing is active. Fine with shaders, oddly, but not with just anti-aliasing without shaders. Oh well.

So this world thus far has far better climate variety than my other hardcore world.

I start exploring a bit more to the West, as it ran parallel to where I ultimately wanted to go (my village) as opposed to away from it, and because "the landscape was calling to me", and then I see this...



I'm beyond words.



It does have some neat caves nearby, though.







Note the above one for an upcoming part.

I decide to store my inventory and leave my bird safely in a house to maybe peak inside one of them.



I enter a smaller one not pictured above, just South of the last picture, and find my first skeleton after a first few minutes of finding no life inside



I then simultaneously hear and see a lot of spiders. I do need string for a bow, still.



Too bad they aren't threatening glued to the ceiling... which may be for the best as I swapped my nearly broken stone sword out for my iron one finally, given they weren't dying with the stone one fast enough and I didn't want to mess around. A few of them had potion particle effects of some sorts.



Just beyond that, I see a breathtaking cavern. See the light above? I later confirmed that was the last surface picture opening I showed above.



I'd like to come back here one day, but not now.

I decide to check the spider spawner chests and then head out. My inventory was nearly full before starting this caving.





Not too awful, I suppose?

I head back towards spawn, knowing I'm heading North at a spot that's slightly West from where I headed South to get here. And in the forest, I see this.



So many attractive cave openings I'd be diving into were this any other world.

I get back to the village and notice these two once again stuck.



So I just break some of the fence and let the pigs out.

The village is... interesting, by the way. Three cartographer buildings, two butcher buildings, one animal pen (pictured), and only two houses.

Not pictured, but I move my temporary stuff from the very first picture in this post into one of the houses, until I finally move to wherever it is I'm going. Most likely that flat spot above.

So what I have planned is to build a bridge across the river. A small village part will be in the flat plains by the strip of sparse jungle. I will then build a, albeit not too large or expansive, habitat in the treetops. This is the "thing I've never done before" but had plans to do in not only one other world, but two... and never did it. And now I might do it in a hardcore world with a ton of restrictions. Even if it's not as expansive in scale, I find that funny. I also want to do something on the floor of the jungle under it (not just for added security but maybe for a future beacon, ruins, or just more village stuff). It's still very much in an idea phase but the overall concept and location is probably firmly set. I think that's where I'll do it, and what I'll do with it.

I'm not sure how the villagers will take to the river between them though, but... oh well. I've dealt with stuff like this before.

And it should be far enough from the other village to not cause awkward merging issues with either of them. And I can get the first one there largely by boat and minimal rail, so it shouldn't be too costly in resources or time or effort.

Videos as well now, you're spoiling us! I just about died at the slow comic pan back and forth between the two villages. If you were a JRPG character there'd be a "..." dialog bubble.

Parrot friend is cute. I hope he doesn't die horribly. Please stay away from creepers now

The set of rules you've formulated, along with hardcore darkness, would give an experience similar to Alpha era survival play. No seed, no coordinates, no trading/enchanting/potions. All you're really missing are no beds and no sprinting.

Unfortunately, the hardcore darkness isn't working, so I haven't been able to enact that one. Seems to be a conflict with OptiFine.

I doubt I'd give up sprinting, and probably not even beds. I might go partial on that second one at most (like only allowing it in a "shelter", or once I've "settled", or only one bed and then that is it, etc) but even that's a bit extreme for me.

Right now I'm worrying the added restrictions might already be too much, but I wanted to make this world different enough from my present hardcore world to justify two of them concurrently. If I do find out I took more than I can handle, I can try again and dial it back. I'd rather slightly overdo the difficulty than slightly underdo it and end up with a world that feels like it's barely justified.

So, I a bit of a different update from prior ones. Rather than an update covering a larger time span and more occurrences, this one will be smaller in actual game updates, but I'll make up for it with showing a couple other things.

I'll also be posting a video instead of picture spam (which, besides that few second disappointment of the villages above, is the first real video of this world). If you don't want to watch it or are short on time, I'll also describe it.



The first area is to give an overview of where my settlement is currently planned to be. Well, part of it. I cross the river around where the bridge may end up leading to the jungle where the other part (and likely my own "home") will be.

I've never actually gone into this jungle before, so this video is sort of as a "live update" thing where you see things I'm not yet aware of. I like to know what's around my immediate area before settling, and I never explored that direction yet, so let's do that. This is heading North, by the way.

Right as I enter, there's a jungle temple. Okay, I'll let this one pass since they're not all too common, but still... another structure.

I mostly want to see if this is a large jungle area, or a smaller one that opens into like a plains/another forest/mountain/ocean. Seems it's the former, but I don't intend to explore the whole thing right now. It also opens up into a very wide "river" and there's a ton of bamboo. Jackpot! I'll be needing much of that. I'm also pleased as I find wide rivers through jungles with a lot of terrain elevation differences visually pleasing, and there's quite a lot of that here by the looks of it.

I turn Left (now heading West) as there's a coast here if you head that way from my starting savanna position, so I want to see what happens going that way.

I eventually hear a bird, and common procedure for this is to drop everything I'm doing and find it! And I do. I don't tame it, and it's the same color as one I have now, so maybe I won't. But it's there if I decide to change my mind, and I'm sure a jungle this size will have plenty more.

I soon come back to a sparse jungle that I was aware of, and show some things you might recognize from earlier pictures (such as the ravine and a shipwreck), before heading back to my village as night is drawing close (I had a bed on me but forgot and thought I left it back at the village).

Upon seeing the river I have to cross between the jungle and sparse jungle though, it makes me realize that river does not, in fact, connect to the ocean running near the village (at least not where I thought it might, but more on this later).

Next update will be back to a usual type with pictures covering more things.

Other parts of this "update".

I don't know if there's any interest for it, but simply for disclosure and like with my prior hardcore world, I figured I'd share the seed.

6756671873941797954

I'm playing in 1.20.1 so this will largely work for anything as of 1.18 or newer (1.19 will lack cherry blossom groves and 1.18 will lack those and deep dark biomes). 1.17 and older, it may as well be a different seed and won't work for them.

And the final part of this update is actually a bending of rule three above. I'm going to post an UnMined surface map of my world this far! It's strictly breaking the rule, but I see it as bending instead of breaking it in this case because the purpose of the rule is to avoid simply gleaning information I shouldn't have, and while that might occur here (there might be stuff I generated but didn't see in game), it's going to be temporary as I plan to map this all eventually soon, so anything I'm about to see looking at the map, I'll be seeing soon anyway. I'm only observing the surface (no looking underground).

The reason I'm even posting the map then, is because I wanted to see how it looks before I formally map it in game and have it neatly squared. But mostly, I want to show how many structures there are in my measly sub-250 MB world so far. I was about to make a lazy paint drawing of it but I chose to do this instead, despite it brushing up against the rule.

If the world was more largely generated and my purpose was to scout things, I wouldn't be allowing myself to do this. But I'm going to map beyond this soon anyway, so... report me to myself for breaking the rule!



Shoutout to megasys for not only UnMined itself, but for updating it, fixing bugs over the years (I came back to these forums to report one...), and adding quality of life stuff like this. UnMined truly is great and I've used it for the majority of my Minecraft lifespan, and this was a neat quality of life thing for those looking for more "pure" survival limitations. Sadly, I'll be breaking it here temporarily.



It's pretty much what my memory thought. Here's the marked version, showing structures.



So I've already gained information to the tune of four structures. I've marked these structures with exclamation marks. Two are on the edge of the world, and while one is in the middle, it was on the edge of where I traveled "around" it. So missing those three makes sense. The forth one is literally right next to where I plan to settle. No doubt I'd have found that soon. And the others I'd fine anyway while mapping. I'll be mapping beyond this range and not looking at UnMined again so I find this fine.

Still doubting structure frequency?

Keep in mind there may be more under the ocean (shipwrecks, ocean ruins, or ocean monuments) but I have it set to hide them unless the surface shows it. This also, of course, doesn't show underground structures.

The Red X is spawn.

Red circles are ruined portals. There are four (I found two in-game, two exposed by this map).

Orange are villages. There are six.

Yellow are shipwrecks. There are five (I found four in-game, one exposed by this map).

White (not visible on the map, but I saw it in-game) is the known ocean ruin. There is one.

The Dark Blue is pillager outposts. There are two.

The light Yellow is jungle temples. There are two (I found one in-game, one exposed by this map).

So in total, we have twenty structures (sixteen that I would have been aware of), and that doesn't include other ones that may be hidden underwater (let alone underground).

We also see that I was mentally mapping this well, and my guess was correct. There is indeed a "diagonal" running Northeast/Southwest of warm climate biomes just North of span, temperate climate biomes in the middle, and cold climate biomes to the South. This particular seed has some variety near spawn.

Lastly, here's one marked with my "trails"



Generally, it goes from Red > Orange > Yellow > Yellow-Green > light Green > dark Green > light Blue > dark Purple > Magenta (the trail in the video) as for my explorations. The two nearby villages from the video in the last post are the Southern-most ones, and the Southwestern-most one is where I did some "caving" (using the term very lightly). You can see why I missed the ruined portal in the center of the map as well. I never went near it yet (and the nearest I went had terrain obstructions).

Quote from Zeno410»

This is not a sentence that should ever need to be uttered about a Minecraft game. This world is certainly a demonstration of the "too many structures today" issue. Besides that you've gotten almost an entire armor set just from shipwrecks in walking distance from spawn. Ab-surd.

Yeah, but to be fair, this is in reference to me choosing to build something sort of near a village, so this would be a thing regardless of how common structures were. I'm fairly sure my choice location is far enough away, though.

If anything, the overly abundant structure frequency is benefiting me because I'm sort of limiting my ideal settlement choices to places around a village.

Quote from Zeno410»

Also with Hardcore, which was the original intention of the game before Notch realized most players don't like it.

Playing hardcore has also made me yearn for something less punishing than hardcore but more punishing than non-hardcore for when i eventually go back to my two non-hardcore worlds.

Like, maybe something like losing all items (not dropping them) on death. That's sort of only a small change but it can also be a big one, especially in this era where netherite is harder to obtain and mending exists (and this will be more true post-1.20 for the former and post-1.20.2 [?] for the latter).

Villages can get quite close together before merging, not sure about the modern mechanics but the game used to use the radius to the outermost "doors" (equivalent to beds) to determine the size of a village, with an additional door detection radius of 16 blocks from a villager (the current page seems to say that part of a village is defined as a 3x3x3 cube of subchunks around a bell, bed, or job site block, with no clear explanation of how close another village can be before merging).

For examples,of how close they can be, in my previous world I made a villager breeder within sight of a village and they showed no indications of trying to get to it (the breeder is the rectangular area on the right side of my base near the lower-right):

Well, I was maybe going to make another update with a video, but I ran into technical issues and long story short, the video is a lost cause so I'll just describe it.

To start, I went and gathered some bamboo on that "bamboo island" shown in my last video. I filled up my inventory and forgot you needed nine, not four, to turn them into a block. I was still able get about a few stacks, but I'll certainly need more. Good thing that jungle is full of bamboo!



I returned home and decided to go on a "light caving" exploration adventure for some more iron. On the start of the next day, I saw the clouds take over the sky, and it was dark. I knew what that meant. I was in a savanna though, so there was no rain obstructing me and things were quite bright compared to rain time in other biomes, and while heading back towards the village, I saw skeletons. I thought this might be a good opportunity to get some arrows before sleeping to reset the weather.

Even in full iron armor and with a shield, two of them were decently threatening. I think I fought four total but never more than three consecutively. Just the two were bad enough. Like "my world is going to perish eventually" realization bad. It's funny that I chose to make a dedicated thread for this world and did my updates for my other hardcore world in the other thread, when it's very likely I'll loose this world sooner rather than later, and it's the other one that I feel is relatively safe. Oh well, I didn't want to make it confusing jumping between two hardcore worlds in that thread so i felt easier just putting the new one here rather than switching them.

Anyway, I went back and reset the weather and killed a nearby creeper. I also realized after doing so and getting its drop that I have next to no need for gunpowder since I can't use elytra or potions. I don't use TNT either. Guess that means I never need to worry about having to actively fight them often, which is good given the risk they pose.

Starting a little South of the pillager outpost near my temporary village, I started heading East, and saw this looking Southwest.



I peeked inside, but it was actually mostly waterlogged, though a crack "beneath" the water filled spot existed did lead to deeper caves, but I chose not to descend the flowing water. It just felt risky.

I started heading further East, but first went a bit North after sufficiently passing the pillager outpost. I found a few small caves but most surprisingly terminated early, and there was a ton of coal inside, but no iron.

From there, I climbed in elevation and then saw this.



Round two. Will it be like the last?

Sort of. It mostly looped on itself and terminated early. Maybe the key was to find someone going into the ground rather than the side, and maybe even a smaller less obvious one? Just a bit beyond that cave (upper left of it in the picture) was some smaller ones, and same deal, but I was getting a bit of coal now. Not a lot, since I'm working with no Fortune enchantment, but some stacks still.

I also found my first emerald (well, besides from loot in chests).



I continued heading east, crossed a river, and it started raining again (it was raining in the prior picture, but I had slept since then). For whatever reason, the view in the valley called to my desire to explore (is my... play style and getting side tracked awkward to anyone else?) and from here I have no further pictures, as this is where the video started. I did want to walk readers through it anyway, and I was going to edit the above map and said forget it and got the updated one (since I'm in such an exploration mood, I'm going to begin the maps soon anyway, and I'm upset at losing the video so this will be my substitute).



The spot where the line turns from lighter Purple to Darker Purple is where the video would have started, and where we're at now (prior two Yellow circles were the cave stops).

Following the valley, I found... another village. It looped around following the river, and so did I, and I crossed the river and looped around that mountain. Wandering into forests isn't... as attractive.

Ah, I really wish the video worked because it miiiight show what I saw and explain why I went the ways I did. Mostly it boils down to "this way looks pretty/attractive/is calling to me, so off I go".

After looping that mountain, I find... another village, not even two minutes after leaving the first. I gather some of the hay blocks.

There's forest to the North and East, so I head South, and find a pretty substantial cave opening (first light Blue circle area). I keep going South, and there's yet... another... village not even a minute from leaving the last one. I actually stopped walking in the video and looked down, as though I was disappointed.

I went to it, gathering the hay blocks, and then notice a pretty big opening with water spilling into it nearby. These are usually neat and good cave openings. I go to it to check it out, but I feel like I'm window shopping as I'm not prepared or ready for any serious cave adventures. I go back to the village and head South across the river, and at the next circled spot, my reaction is "pretty cherry trees!" so I head to them. I actually sleep here to pass a night and it's pretty. I'd totally build a village here if I didn't want to be too repetitive to my first world. The... spot... is... gorgeous.

Spoiler alert (meaning the map gave this this information but I didn't see it in game), had I not switched to heading South to this cherry blossom area, I would have found a forth village, making four back to back to back to back, basically seeing one when leaving the prior one. Village frequency is beyond ridiculous.

I knew I was in the general area of that "large cherry blossom area" I spotted heading east way back when, so I started heading West, expecting to eventually find that village in the cherry blossom area.

On the way, I found another massive cave opening. I got a bit close and watched a few zombies come out, taking one out myself, and getting hit by a few arrows from a skeleton. Master_Caver would have been very sad watching me walk to all these openings only to walk away. Might have been considered torture.

I head down and now take the river, actually spotting a trident drowned at some point, who is luckily too far away to come after me. Tridents won't be useful anyway without enchantments.

I do indeed find that village, and then start heading back towards my temporary village. The rest is uneventful as I'm crossing known lands, with one exception, and that's the White circle after leaving the village.

I jump at one point to get down towards the water faster... and just miss clearing land. I think I get down to two and a half hearts or so.

I am not going to last long in this world, am I?

Sorry for the double post, but formatting and not wanting to break things in the prior post had me just started this after making sure the above post worked well (seems using spoiler tags in the rich editor mode causes some space issues afterwards).

Quote from Zeno410»

I gotta say that although close up rivers look OK, on a large map they look goofy. Also I initially thought the smooth lines delineating climates and biomes would be OK, they're starting to bug me. The old fractal boundaries look much better on maps.

I'm indifferent on this.

I found it annoying and pleasing what the shapes of biomes before could result in. But that was in-game. On maps, especially from a larger distance, they looked awful because it was random jigsaw puzzle looking, and I didn't find that pleasing, especially when the biomes had random placement and no climate ordering.

I don't mind the smooth shapes in game, although the juts sticking out at times made for some neat things. But on a map? It only looks a lot better to me.

Also I forgot to respond to this earlier, but I don't mind rivers either. Is it specifically the winding nature of them you dislike, or something else? Abundance of them?

Quote from TheMasterCaver»

Villages can get quite close together before merging, not sure about the modern mechanics...

Yeah, I'm not totally sure about village mechanics either, but I remember something like 64 (or 128) blocks being said to be a "sure safe distance", at least from what I'm recalling from some searches on things back when i started my 1.16 world and was trying to learn some of the nuances.

That's not to say things won't work and not merge or cause issues closer, but I'm definitely going to want some distance for safety. I think I'll be more than far enough though.

Quote from TheMasterCaver»

I also once found two villages (and a desert temple) within sight of each other...

Yeah, I had two villages rather close in my original world from 1.2.5 to 1.6 (one was tiny though, which made it neater), and I was fine with that being possible given how villages aren't just littered everywhere.

In modern versions though, it's more the norm than the exception and they are everywhere. When every village is within sight of the last, the game loses it's "open canvas" feel bad.

Yeah, the rivers do look a bit goofy on the map but at least you can generally get around with a boat now. They used to be absolutely pointless. Little dribbly ditches.

Sometimes I think I'm the only person on the planet who doesn't like 1.18+ terraingen. But I didn't like the Adventure Update either.

That seems like a lot of cherry groves in a fairly small amount of space. Luck, or are they actually fairly common?

Quote from Brackenburrow»

Sometimes I think I'm the only person on the planet who doesn't like 1.18+ terraingen. But I didn't like the Adventure Update either.

I almost certainly dislike it more, largely because of the way biomes generate, due to both the "climate system" introduced in 1.7 and the absurd size of biomes since 1.18 (like seriously, they seem to be even larger than the old "Large Biomes" size):

A random map generated in 1.18+:



4 random seeds in 1.6.4; each map is 1024x1024 blocks, or 2x2 grid cells in the map above; every single one contains both "hot" and "cold" biomes (even if there was really only desert and taiga back then, jungle might be considered hot though it isn't in 1.7+ and ice plains generates as a special "climate" even in 1.6.4, so is found in large regions, but generally still much smaller than modern climate zones):



4 random seeds in TMCW, showing how much variety there can be within such a small area when you have 120+ biomes (about 60 "actual" biomes and the same number of edge/x-hills/other sub-biomes):



These are the spawn areas of several of my worlds (400x400 blocks):

World1 (vanilla):



TMCWv4:



TMCWv5: