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Season 3: Episode 14

Waking after a night under the stars on the ocean on a... sunken ship, I start the next day by exploring the body of water and seeing what it uncovers.



That's an interesting part of a mountain. It's like the cliff just terminated any generation that was going to occur and said "this stops here, ocean now". It's pretty wild.

Along the southern end of the map is a little inlet that I use to land, and I decide to head West towards that mountain, both because I want to see it, and because I figure filling in this remainder of the map first makes more sense.

Just over it (or well... over what little there is of it) is evidence of more mountains, but this was expected. The Southeastern corner of the prior map was full of these.



There's yet another massive cavern opening here. Let's get a closer look at it.





Turning my exploration North, and facing another mountain, I come across some exposed stone areas, and seeing some coal, I decide I may as well get what I can here of it. I'm not direly low, but I'm getting low, and this would stave off a full coal expedition.



I round the mountain to its left and finish the Eastern edge of the map, and then look back at the mountains before departing.



Now it's time to do the Southwest and conclude this small adventure.

It's my favorite area!



I keep looping back to this general area and I definitely don't mind it. I'm almost tempting building something here...

I head back into the... bay (?) or... lake (?) and come across another small inlet, this one seemingly a terminated river that exposes what might be a much fuller ocean beyond it.



There more stony shores here with plentiful exposed coal and iron. I gather more of the former and end up with (I believe) around a stack and a half, combined with the earlier gathering (which I think was around 33 worth). There's an ocean ruin here, but I won't be checking it. Unlike ruined portals and shipwrecks, these seem a bit rarer to me so it's more nice to note when I find one.



The Southwest containing ocean is charted, and then I head North by sea. Land isn't far off, and there's nice visual variety here, both in terrain elevation and biome and decorators. There's somewhat steep stone shores, a beach, hills that slope down to meet the ocean, and a variety of forests.

One in particular is dark oak, and I keep seeing more of them in multiple places down here in this region. I'm hoping I find a woodland mansion eventually. I don't have plans to attempt one in this world, but it'd nice to check it off as eventually having been found. Maybe this will have one?



I land to the East (right) and chart the oak forest which is behind the small "mountain" (grove) that was visible in the distance behind the setting sun in the last picture in the previous update.

From there, the West is birch forest.



There's another inlet of water down here, and there's a ruined portal along the shore. It's shocking I didn't notice this earlier as I sort of landed here, but my sight and attention was focused on the peninsula portion at that time. Still strange I missed it. What alerted me of it here was noticing the coloration on the map. I figured it must be a ruined portal or dark colored wood sunken ship. I was thinking the former more, and it was.





I wouldn't have missed anything to not notice it though. It's one that I end up taking absolutely nothing from. Nothing here is of interest or use to me.



While concluding the map, I notice there's ocean to the North and West of the dark oak forest I saw just off the edge of the map earlier.



So it seems that might be it for that, or else there's more beyond it? Otherwise, maybe the chances of a woodland mansion being around here are low. I sort of know what is beyond this, but not immediately, so there's a chance... but it's really low I imagine.

I make my way back home after not being there for a few updates (which will become more regular as my real adventuring begins now).

It's a lovely and cozy sight and feeling to see this.



Here's a certain someone's favorite part? (Edit: I forgot, I promised before and after ones so I added the before.)





The approximate three by three square of nine maps to the West on the bottom is the primary "area of interest" I'm looking to show. It might fall outside that a bit as I'm not sure of the exact specifics until I chart it, but that's the general area I went on the original expedition down here, and that's the whole reason my first expansion was to go this way first.

However, I think I'll be doing one more "pre-adventure, adventure" first.. Noooo, not again, you ask? Don't worry, these still count. It's just being flexible in the ordering I'm tackling the map expansion.

My intention is to add the first two maps along the Western edge at the top. I won't do all six, but for whatever reason i want to add these two first. Maybe to finish that edge of the cold meets temperate area.

If you're confused, here's a visual example.



For reference, one the area marked with numbers 1 and 2 are done, that will match the Westernmost edge of the core area I've charted and have mapped back in Rubyville at what I'll be referring to as the "world map" for future reference (secondary locations will have "local region" maps).

I'm not looking to necessarily align this exactly with it, but especially in this case it would mean I'd be awkwardly cutting a pretty exciting area. What matters is that I don't map areas multiple times. So the top of this map meets the bottom of the world map, so as long as I don't go further North I'm good. I'll possibly adjust this map East or West some depending on developments as I uncover more of the terrain.

Micromanaging all the local region maps to ensure that match the same grid isn't important to me. If some maps get done and only end up on the world map and not any local region map, I'm fine with that. It will allow me to remain a bit flexible in where I settle in further areas, and in how I approach expanding the maps.

But first... I might need to get some more resources. My diamond stuff is starting to get a bit low, and for the larger adventure coming up, I wonder if I might want to start considering having the resources on hand to have to do my first replacement set of armor.

Season 3: Episode 15

So I have a little... Easter egg of sorts. Over the course of the next two updates, and I won't say where, I make a mistake. I want to see if anyone notices it before I say what it is at the end of the next update.

Time to head North!

I head to the expected area of where I'd need to start the new map, and do so.



Hm, I went a bit too far North, but no harm. I'll work my way back South and adapt as needed. Par for the course regardless.

The start of the map was done on top of a plateau. So heading South, I'm overlooking a bit of forest at the base, with plains in the distance. In the last video I made some updates ago now, I started by running up a different plateau with cherry blossoms, and then continued heading West for a bit before reaching the edge of that map. This is overlooking that same area. I won't be exploring further this way as it's off the South edge, but it gives a look as to where I'll be adventuring after I do these couple of maps up North.



I have to descend a bit and then head West, and from just past the corner, we get a better look at what awaits me beyond.



I remember seeing that (although from a different angle) on my original pilgrimage down here. The exciting stuff comes soon!

With another ridge to the West (pictured right above), I instead decide to make another sweep North for now though.

I can make way around the original plateau I started on, and beyond it is the dark oak forest we saw glimpses of before ever landing on this land down here.

There's a lot of little bays from the ocean to the North, and rivers and other bodies of water running throughout, so I started getting some exploration by boat in, and I'm able to get an unusual amount done this way for vanilla Minecraft.



Before working West, I get the bit of ocean to the Northeast corner. And when I say bit, I mean it. I was expecting around half, give or take, of the Northern half of this map to be ocean, but it's only a small portion. Maybe the land extends up further than expected here and possible even wraps up to connect to the land up North more to the West? In any case, even from the corner you see more land pushing up here, and it's more dark oak forest? Where is my woodland mansion!?



I head back into the body of water pushing into the land and follow it, where on one side the dark oak forest gives way to birch. Is that... actually more ocean beyond? Maybe the dark oak land mass is a larger island of sorts?



The dark oak forest is large, so the more I can chart by water, the better.

Pushing forward, I discover the large ocean isn't so large. There's ridges of land beyond decorated by trees, and while vanilla trees have faults, this always looks pretty.



I chart what I can by water, which is starting to become a lot more than expected, and head back North as I've reached the Southern edge of the map. On the other side, the dark oak forest also gives way to birch, signifying an eventual end to it. I anticipate it's still going to be large. There's a neat little terrain opening/cove of sorts.



The body of water pushes Westward, and the ride to the Southwest corners and runs West along it. There's cherry groves in the distance. I... think I know where this is!



If so, yes, the exciting bits are drawing near (but for a future adventure).

Having reached the West edge now, I decide to fill in those missing gaps in the Southwest and central South spots.

Doing the former has me leaving my boat, and trekking up a ridge. I get a surprise up here to see the ridge splits into two, with another river running between them. It looks attractive, but forbidden, as it lays off this map.



Heading back across the larger body of water towards the other remaining space, I spot the plateau I first avoided early in this adventure when I shifted my travels North to avoid it. Time to finally get it.



At the top is a pretty remarkable cavern opening. Trying to get some pictures has me witness some spawns, and a zombie villager notices me and comes out, so I don't get as many as I'd like.







I wonder if that last one is the larger hole seen in the ridge side a few pictures earlier.

After sleeping up here, and there were many other smaller openings scattered around, I make my way down and head North by water.

There's yet another river to be found so i follow it, and this one yields good returns as I can also follow it to the end of the map. This bit is sparse on pictures but it's just mostly dark oak forests which shift to oak at the very end. But what I find beyond the very end shocks me greatly.



Wait... why is there a warm climate region here!?

I noted a bit of a jungle and savanna off the maps South of my house. Now there's another Savanna here to the Northwest. This... is shocking. There's a formal cold region to the North/Northeast. Okay, maybe it wraps from the West to the South, you ask? I... can't say, but something I know that will be shown in the coming adventure to that region contrasts that idea. This just got confusing.

But that's a question for another day. For now I again need to turn back, and I decide to get that bit of dark forest to the center of the map. There's a split in the river up here where heads East, and joins back with the same river in another spot, allowing me to chart more of the dark oak forest by boat, but soon I need to do the gaps by land. Time to be a tree top dweller again!



I finish the center and then head North, which is mostly a bit of ocean I missed.

That's one map done, and one to go. Then the stuff I've waiting to show can slowly be started.

Quote from Zeno410»

That mountain just ending at the water is pretty much the norm for current minecraft - you see it in the other shore shots too; they just aren't as high. The generator just isn't aware water is nearby until it's about a chunk away, and IMO it's one of the greatest weaknesses of current generation.

I have to disagree with this part. There's weakness with current terrain generation, but this definitely doesn't cross my mind as a major one, or one at all.

It's rather rare that this occurs, but it seems intentional as a method to get this sharp cliffs to me. I suppose whether it should do that is up to interpretation, or I suppose whether there are certain things about it that could be done better is a question worth asking, but I've seldom seen it and I love the results here. If it was super common I might feel a bit less appreciative of it, but I don't mind it here.

The one thing I am somewhat turned off by more is what I had going on at spawn, and that's the very tall and narrow "mountains" or whatever they are that seem to happen some savanna (M?) biomes. Then again, I did find that one "spire" totally inland and I really liked that. Shame that's in a totally different area just off the map and I won't be able to check it out for a while.

Season 3: Episode 16

After finishing the bit of ocean to the North, I begin the second map. I head along the river back to the Northwest corner so I can start in a corner for the new map.

The next picture will be a small jump. While a jump this size isn't a lot to do, especially if a lot of it is unremarkable (like an ocean, as it is here), I try to avoid this while changing maps or for the start of updates, so I apologize for this one. The real reason is I was going to do a video for the earlier portions of this map, but I decided to to keep it since, again, it wasn't substantial enough in my eyes.

The Southwest is a bit of oak forest, there was more of the dark oak forest to the central North (I started with an East sweep), and from there it was ocean as expected. That brings us to here, the Northeast, which is where the ocean meets land. I expected this.



There's more ocean expected to the center, but beyond that is a guessing game.

I check the above pictured shipwreck, something I've been avoiding on the many recent ones.



It has no diamonds, which would have been the prized find, but I take everything but the lapis lazuli.

I head South back into the ocean, and then head back West, doing the inverse of my first pass and making a reverse L shape of sorts.



From down here it looks like the land of North might run close to the land down South. I was expecting this possibility as I could see hints of that (the map doesn't show as far as I can see, unfortunately), but there is a pass here that suggests there could be more ocean beyond this? That would mean the land pushing South from above might be a peninsula of sorts.

I head through this way and the results hint that my guess might be correct.



The various types of forest and terrain altitude along the shore from the ocean looks nice.

Before heading North, I decide to head back over to the Eastern side and map what I can from the ocean there. It solidifies my earlier guess.



I decide to land and chart on foot for a bit in the expected forest.

Here's the obligatory cave pictures for the certain cave lovers out there.





While heading West along the North, the forest gives way to plains. It's been a while since I saw some of these, and this has a village.

The way the ocean cuts up between where I'm standing and the village gives a pretty nice vantage of the village from here. It appears the ocean may wrap behind it as well. That's a pretty nice (and realistic) village spot.



Before making a mad dash to it, I decide to get the center and do the expected land peninsula below. Then I'll get what I expect is the rest of the ocean and bits of land to the Northwest.

The peninsula holds more split cave openings.





That second one looks like a smaller version of the one I found on the prior map.

From a very large hill (basically atop the prior pictured spot), I look west and there's an island in the ocean.



I notice the water looks... nicer (?) and different when viewed from up high. More detailed, and it looks "ocean-like". But I wonder if this is why scenes with a lot of water are so performance demanding. However I have the water set seems to be making it overly detailed but I don't see it as much from the surface (the next picture will show this).

Making my way down to chart said ocean, beyond the island, I find another island. And this one is more remarkable.



This would be "second" mushroom island finding. I quote that because I've found four (or three if you don't count tiny offshoots) mushroom islands before this, but there were all sort of in the same region.

Likewise, one of these is tiny and the other can only be partially spotted, so there's no telling how many, or how large (or not) these will be. I found it amusing though to find two regions of these with even more islands, and no woodland mansion yet. The elusive thing evades me still!

I head North and meet the locals of the pretty seaside village.





With the map done, it's time to head back.

Here's where I want to ask something. What was my mistake? Did you notice it?

I head back home, and here's the map changes. Here's the map prior to the additions I just got.





Well, my mistake should be apparent now. I wanted to do the two Northernmost maps. And I know why I made this mistake. I originally had a map that looked like this...



Filling in the two maps earlier threw me off and made me think I was the second map from the edge, when I was really three.

But this isn't so bad. Based on what I found of the first (Southernmost) map, it didn't spoil into what I wanted to show in that region so it gets it out of the way. I do want that awkwardly missing Northern map though, so yes I will be making a quick trip back up there for it. Again, not really a loss since I'd be going after that 3 x 3 area after this anyway, so that gets one of those nine done early.

After that next trip North, I suppose doing the two below that column on their own makes sense.

From there? I may make the largest single adventure I've ever done (currently five maps in one go). I might do the remaining six maps at least, and depending on how much that uncovers, I might do even more so as to not awkwardly cut things at bad spots. I thinking of bringing twelve or so maps (!) and then planning to do the six, and then maybe an extra to the West and South if needed. This isn't as much as it sounds relatively, since the four and five map adventures were so much further from my starting point, so I feel six (or more) closer to home isn't too much to attempt. But it's still going to be, and by far, the biggest I've attempted in one go. Less frequent before and after maps (I'll still have a couple more before that for the next two trips), but one big pay off?

Yeah, I wasn't expecting the mistake to be obvious and I wasn't even going to ask beforehand if anyone spotted it before I pointed it out myself, but I thought it'd be nice to mention "hey, I make a mistake, can you spot it" and see if it was obvious. You're making me feel a whole lot better for having made that slip up now, but it's not really one that matters anyway.

What do you mean by investigating the larger caverns? I'm trying to get a couple/few pictures of them which I did here (I know I don't always, but I did here) but I definitely don't want to get too close to going into them. I don't have torches, and it's a big risk.

But I sort of do a little better at this with an upcoming update (not the next one, but the one after). It'll even be in a video. An, um... very long one, but it'll be right at the start incidentally for anyone who doesn't want to watch the whole thing.

I'm not sure sketching maps is my thing. A larger update is sort of the same thing as a few back to back updates, just minus the running back and forth to home. Yes, that does mean it will be minus a couple of times where I might otherwise have a map update, but the tradeoff is the updates come a bit faster, and I really don't want to break this region up. I don't expect very large expeditions like this to be the norm. If anything, I'm making up for it now by having updates where I do only two or even one map at a time. That's adding a lot of running back and forth and is inefficient. I like to do two to four maps for the most part, and I've done five before. If I can do that as my average I think that's good. A few times where I do one or two maps a lot will offset the very rare, larger updates I think.

Season 3: Episode 17

Time to get caught up on that quick, single map of its own.

Making my way back North, I head to the village as a starting point, knowing it is in a corner. So I'll head just North of it and start a new map.

It's not yet that bad to get back to places since I haven't explored out too far, especially to the Easy and the South, but even to the North where I had, it isn't yet too bad. This is helped since most of it is ocean, so I pass back by the mushroom islands. Somewhere around there, a dolphin had "attached" to me (they do this it seems) and followed me all the way to the North of the village.



Though it didn't speed it up, I thanked it for the companionship, and said goodbye.

It was time to head North.

This is looking a bit Northwest so just off the edge of where I'll be heading, but there's a bit more ocean ahead, with a shore of forest across it.



The forest isn't too long, as there's another body of water beyond it, but there's signs of a lot more forest ahead, and I expect much of the map will be, based on what I've seen into it from the edge of the maps to the North and to the East of this one.



There's oak and birch forest scattered here, but also a lot of taiga, and I expect much of it to be that.

I begin making my way back South, and halfway down, it starts raining. It's no storm, but maybe it would be better if it were. I could then sleep. Passing through forest with rain is... not totally unsafe, but less comfortable.



I reach the South where it's plains, but only for a small potion Northeast of the village. I head East now to get a pass along the bottom edge of the map.

I spot these wolves taking cover from the rain.



I reach the Eastern edge where it's just barely flirting with the edge of the cold region, and then make my way back West. Once it's time to head North again, I spot a ruined portal.



I won't check it yet though. I should come closer to it on the next pass.

At the North is a small lake, and beyond it is a ridge. I don't yet realize it (but will shortly) but this is a ridge I visited long ago.



Heading South, I come across a pair of foxes frantically rushing past. The wide open space of the river provides some variety, albeit it barely, from all the forest I've been seeing.

Just a bit further South, near the corner of where I'll shift and head East, I come back across the portal, and so I check it before the day ends.





It has a few obsidian, and another golden apple, which I take.

The gear and fire charges are left, as usual.

Heading East, my passes are becoming shorter now, and the cold region pushes further into the map I'm doing, which will give some more variety to the last bits of this map.

What was unexpected, but should not have been (I'll have my reminder soon), was that there was snowy plains to go with the cold region. I expected taiga.



I again head West, and then North. From the top of a larger hill, I see that ridge in the distance again, along with a familiar village that reminds me exactly where I am.





I fill in the rest of the snowy plains, and begin making my way home. On the way, I spot another fox, this time an arctic one, just before formally leaving this new map.



That's one quick map down to make up for my mistake, and here's the map change.





Next I'll be getting the two maps to the South in the same column. That consists of the beginning of the region I'm wanting to show. From there, I'll embark on my largest adventure yet.

Quote from Princess_Garnet»

I have to disagree with this part. There's weakness with current terrain generation, but this definitely doesn't cross my mind as a major one, or one at all.

It's rather rare that this occurs, but it seems intentional as a method to get this sharp cliffs to me. I suppose whether it should do that is up to interpretation, or I suppose whether there are certain things about it that could be done better is a question worth asking, but I've seldom seen it and I love the results here. If it was super common I might feel a bit less appreciative of it, but I don't mind it here.

The one thing I am somewhat turned off by more is what I had going on at spawn, and that's the very tall and narrow "mountains" or whatever they are that seem to happen some savanna (M?) biomes. Then again, I did find that one "spire" totally inland and I really liked that. Shame that's in a totally different area just off the map and I won't be able to check it out for a while.

It looks like the far lands but Mojang deleted it in a update unless your playing on the version before

Quote from Wolfarmer»

It looks like the far lands but Mojang deleted it in a update unless your playing on the version before

Not even close to the Far Lands, which haven't existed for over a decade (Beta 1.7.3), unless you use mods, and they are still over 12.5 million blocks away from spawn and are an endless stretch of extremely deformed terrain reaching the terrain height limit (128 before 1.7, 256 before 1.18, and probably 320 since):

https://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-java-edition/discussion/2391376-recreating-the-far-lands

Prior to that, the closest to a steep-sided mountain was something called a "monolith", which existed in even older versions (InfDev-early Alpha), and they still don't look like anything that might naturally generate (perfectly vertical sides to the height limit):

https://minecraft.wiki/w/Monolith

It just looks like the far lands because it is a a strait wall but that was probably just chunk loss

Yeah I've been doing quite a bit of traveling but not quite millions of blocks, haha.

It couldn't have been the far lands anyway

Season 3: Episode 18

Okay I'm getting super excited and can't contain it so I'll put this update up too. I'm going to get way too far ahead otherwise.

Let's finish the last two maps in that column. Both maps will be done in this one update. About two thirds of the first map will entirely be covered by video. Don't worry, I will still give a text description and I always will, but there will be a gap of pictures at that point. The video is like... half an hour long. Yeah...

So just read and skip the video if you're either short on time or don't care. Don't worry, I won't do long videos like that often since I don't like big gaps of pictures.

To start, I head West and intend to go towards that village near the Northwest corner of the map the west of me. I'll then move off the edge and start the map.



It's not as far North as I thought, but at least I didn't go far within it.

I decide to hear North and do that corner first.



There's another village not far from the one I just left, and we're getting more into terrain of plains and plateaus adorned with cherry groves.

I elect not to head West here yet, and simply head back over my small bit of charted terrain and head South. The plains end for forest near the Southern edge.

Heading back North, you can see the bottom bits are all forest. It does shift to birch more to the West.



Shortly North, the forest ends but the treeless terrain here is a higher altitude. There is... yet another village here. And upon seeing it, I think I recognize it. Yes indeed, I'm getting towards the valleys I remember traversing through when I first discovered this place.



I leave the forest behind and head North more and arrive back at the first village I found. It's incredibly close to both the prior one, and the one I started at (but not on this map) isn't too far either.



I head up the ridge towards the very tiny cherry grove and get a view of the village the following morning. In a prior picture some updates back, that arch cavern could just barely be seen looking in this corner.



I head down to it, and from there, I did a video which covers the rest of this first map. Again, skip the video if you wish. The immediately first moments do show me giving a good look into that cave though. Well... as good of one as I'll chance.



After peeking into the cave, I make my way North and head up the hill. Just past the top, I reach the other village.

I take a look over the forest I'll next be heading to, notice a fire (of course), and then gather some hay bales from the village. There's two nitwits here, and I suppose that's why the young one I see gets away with jumping on the beds.

I should have rested here but the night, but I depart as the sun is setting, so I awkwardly sleep on a cliff side. I head down the cliff and make my way through the forests. I cross a river and it shifts to the birch I saw earlier.

I gather some sugar cane and try and do so for any further ones I come across, because I realized recently it would boost my supplies for making more maps eventually.

I continue through the forest to the Southern edge. Once I reach it, I begin to head West, but I climb some trees (that's my new thing) and observe there's an ocean in the Southwest. Hm, that may run down and meet where I saw it wrapping around that dark oak forest, which would bear near the Southeast corner of the map below this one, that I'll do next.

I head West, and once I reach the beach, it starts raining. Lovely, and I'd love to dance in it and get wet, and then go swimming, and do all that beach stuff... but it's a storm! So I sleep and get wet instead, and get another reset to the daylight counter, which doesn't mean much since the prior day just started anyway.

Instead of shifting North immediately, I continue along the short. There's a bit of land to the South, but a passage that appears to have more ocean beyond it. This is lining up to a significant portion of the next map might be ocean. I notice a taiga tree, which suggests this is getting cool.

I continue to the Southwest corner, coming across another fire (of course...). There's a lake down here, and I cross it. There's some raised terrain in the plains to the North, and some of the raised terrain in the distance has more taiga. It's shifting to a cool region that way.

I suppose I'll take this chance to give a slight spoiler. There's not just a cool region that way, but a formal cold one. Yes, another one. This explains my confusion at the two warm zones I saw. There's a formal cold zone to the North, and another one to the Southwest. Either of those warm zones alone would be surprising, but both? I'm hoping at least one connects to a formal hot region not far away. That would be interesting.

I land and notice.... *sigh* yet... another... village. Since the land in the immediate area is flat, I decide to zig-zag a bit to fill the Southwest corner in. So I head East and into the remaining bits of the forest.

I spot some lily of the valley, and decide I'll take them. I don't think I need them. But I want them.

I come across a bit of wide and shallow surface cave opening in this part of the forest. It gets deeper under the surface, but I can't get a better look without going in.

I head North and fill in what appears to be the last bit of forest on this map, at least outside of some signs of one to the Northwest. Before finalizing my trip through this forest, I find more lily of the valley and gather them too.

I reach a ridge and head back West towards the most recent village I spotted. I gather more hay bales here, carefully as to not upset the iron golem.

I head a bit South to fill in some fringe gaps, and there's cows down here. I'm trying to collect some when I find them not far out of the way to boost my supply more for the large upcoming adventure.

To the Western edge of the map is a lot more ridges, hills, slopes, and varying terrain. All signs of what's to come. Even more cherry grove trees are visible to the West.

Now there's lot of climbing to do!

I spot a surface opening while climbing this ridge. I reach the top, and... *SIGH* there it is, another village!

This one is neat though, because there's a river cutting through the terrain and running in a U shape around it, and it borders a forest. That does mean I'll have a lot more climbing ahead. I also find there's a large cavern opening directly under it.

I notice a very small "mountain" to my left up here, but I'm already up rather high. Still, it's small relatively. I gather more cows and head towards the Northwestern corner. There's more cherry blossom trees to the Northwest on a further map, and... I think I know where that is and exactly where I am and I'm super excited!

I make my way down the cliff, and once I'm partially down and see I have a safe chance, I dive into the river. There's a lone house on the water level, and it has cracks of a cave opening in the side of the cliff near it. I peek in, but it's not too substantial, and that's not worth any more of a look either. Then I make the awkward dig and place route back up the other side.

I gather more hay bales from this village, and this one has some gold and iron ingots I claim. The latter will be useful for map making at least.

I head into the forest a bit to chart the rest of the terrain on this side of the river, and get some views of the surrounding terrain I've yet to chart.

There's another massive cavern opening in the cliff side across the river.

I head down while making my way East and end up overlooking that large body of water I discovered a number of updates back. I use it to travel by boat a bit South down the river, and then land and climb back up the other side.

I fill in the rest of the highlands atop this plateau, and that concludes the video.

Shortly after that, I am looking South over the center-most village of the map and see a pretty large cavern opening right in the surface of the plains. Huh? I somehow missed that, despite it being practically right next to where I was gather the cows South of that village.



One map down, one to go.

I head Southeast and start the next map in its Northeast corner, back in the forest in that portion of the map.



The birch forest to the West wraps around South and I come across it down here too, and the expected dark oak forest is also here. As expected, there's a lot of ocean beyond, so... this map will be pretty quick and uneventful.

While heading West along the Southern edge, I do find more land. So it's not all ocean at least. And it's taiga.



There's a shipwreck to the South (left) but I don't bother with it. Also to the South, the taiga turns back to oak (going back temperate?).

I land and head North once quickly reaching the corner, and it even more quickly becomes ocean again. This bit of land only covers this corner, and is an "island" insofar as charting this map goes.



The rest is largely ocean, as expected. Along the very edges of both the West and North is taiga and now old growth taiga. Seems we'll have that on the West map (which is the map I start the next adventure with).



I land to the bit of land to the North, which like the bit to the South, may as well have been an "island" for this particular charting adventure.



That concludes the second map, so I head back home to add the two newest maps, and to supply up before the great adventure.

Here was the map before this update.



Here's the map now.



The adventure will be initially targeting that 3 x 3 square to the bottom left of my now 3 x 5 map. I'll be starting in the bottom right, and then adapting from there.

Long story

'Tis but a young one. Now this one has a story to tell.

Season 3: Episode 19

The time has finally arrived! It's time to set out on what will be my longest adventure away from home (and my biggest disappointment for Zeno due to lack of map updates).

I definitely needed to check some thing were in order first. Many of my tools were low, so I used a good part of the 10 diamonds I had on hand to make some extras. The ones I had had enough durability... maybe. Low enough to be a concern, but not low enough that they were about to break soon, so I left them behind and could combine them later when the new ones lose some durability.

I also brought my bow and the few arrows I have, a couple of extra stacks of food, and a lot of maps and paper. My gear is getting low, but I go through it so slowly when I'm avoiding combat (as I will be here) that it should be fine.



I might have brought another bed if I thought about it, but... it should be fine?

Right then, let's get this started.

As a refresher, I'm initially focused on the 3 x 3 square of 9 spots attached to the Southwest of my 3 x 5 completed map. Since I don't know exactly where the entire area of interest is, I'm going to be willing to adapt hat as needed, so I might add rows or columns.

I don't know if I'll do map sketches as I go, but here's one to outline my plan and to go over some things I know.



So the Yellow square is the 3 x 3 map area I'll be doing for sure. The 1, 2, and 3 indicate how I plan to start. Beyond that it depends. I think I'll go West and do 4, 5, and 6 downwards, and then 7, 8, and 9 upwards in the last column, but that's assuming I only do nine maps.

The orange dotted line represents areas I might add.

Something else to mention here is the current placement of the 3 x 5 completed area is not set. I can always move it right and chart more to the West. Or, I could do the inverse. But I can't move it down since maps beyond some of the North would cross over what I've already charted on my world map.

Additionally, when I get to certain parts of the area of interest, I may want to reveal it in a certain order, or from a certain direction, so that may impact my later mapping direction.

Let's cover the rest.

The Black "W" are warm zones.

The Black "C?" is a known cold zone but I'm not positive of where it is exactly (just that it is "down there").

The Blue scribbles are areas I know to be water as I saw off into the next maps, and the light Green lines are approximate shores.

The Purple "M" is a mushroom island.

The Purple "?" is, well... it's a secret. But that's around where I'd guess is the interesting bits that had me come down here to begin with. This is it.

I'll also mention that for these adventures, I will be raising my render distance up to 32 (and for any videos I do, and expect a fair amount of them, just no half hour ones), they may be a bit choppy at times as a result, but it shouldn't be too awful. Since maps only do 8, I don't often like to go this high in this world, but for this area it'll be worth it.

So I head down to the tile marked "1" and begin a map.



Since I know the North is ocean, I head that way first to get the land charted, and then will head West doing small sweeps to get what I can.

In no time at all, I find something just to the West.



There it is. There's the edge of the cold region. So we have two cold regions somewhat nearby one another on opposite corners, and two warm (but maybe not hot?) regions spotted. I'm hoping at least one of them turns hot. I'd like to find another formal hot region next. But that will be quite a time from now.

I reach the Southern edge of the map and head North, leaving the forest and slipping just into the snowy plains. The winter boots go on!

Not far North from here I find a well nestled taiga village. No, really, I was walking and was apparently almost right next to a house and didn't notice it, and only noticed the village since I saw the path on the ground. Vanilla forests are too bad at obstructing sight.



As I head further North, I come across a fire. Hey, that's not nice! This is supposed to be for cold things only!



I begin making my way back South and from just over the trees, I see an iceberg. So I know there's a frozen ocean that way too, then. Hopefully it's not as much as the other one.



At the Southern edge, there's non-snowy taiga and oak forest beyond the map to the South. For now, I have no immediate reason to expect to add that to my charted area but I can get an idea of the border of the cold region from this.



I head back North and the forest starts giving way to open frozen rivers, lakes, and frozen ocean. Time to do some boating on ice?



At least on this map, there won't be a lot of frozen ocean, and I won't be doing the map to the West immediately after this one, so it breaks it up a bit.

I find a ruined portal near the Western edge on my last pass.



It has a pair of golden apples and many handfuls of golden nuggets that I take.



I notice what appears to be a... cave (?) in an iceberg. Do the cave formations occur in these too, or is this just something else?



I'll be trying (and you'll see!) to get more cave pictures, even if that means taking a couple/few pictures of some cave openings for different angles. I didn't want to overdo pictures which is why I'd often do one, but Zeno asked for more. I won't be taking pictures of all cave openings or I'd be showing three for every other picture and most would be insignificant. And I won't enter any either (sort of, again... you'll see). But I'll try and show more.

That concludes the first map. Do not let this fool you into thinking following ones will all be so short. To the contrary, things of interest become far more frequent, fast.

I think it's interesting how the bits of frozen water (on the rivers) don't exactly follow the edge of the cold meets cool region border on land.

Quote from Zeno410»

How would you have info about the purple question mark area? Have you been there? Or is this being written after the fact?

I have been there, so yes I knew what it was before I arrived (and in real time, I'm just about to arrive but I've not been playing the past couple days and I'm way ahead despite it). The entire reason i came down here was for this. I thought I explained it before but maybe I did a poor job of it.

When I was having issues with my PC crashing is when this happened. I didn't want to discuss that much since it's not the purpose of this thread. The crashing I was experiencing seems to have been a faulty particular video card on the hardware level since I had it replaced and it stopped happening so far. While I was still trying to resolve it though, and especially once the crashes started becoming more frequent, I was trying to sort of stress test while trying to narrow down the cause and seeing if attempting fixes worked, and so for a number of sessions, I would just wander out into wilderness beyond my charted area instead of formally mapping and saving pictures to document it. I did two such occurrences of this.

The first had me head South into the cold region, head further South along the ocean/frozen ocean border (seen in the map above), and then start exploring once I found land. That plains area with the big surface split was the first thing I found. From there, I started following the terrain in spots that interested me, and it led me to that question mark area.

The second time I headed in a totally different direction (from Rubyville) and I headed East-Northeast once leaving land into the larger ocean to the East, and it was... pretty much all ocean.



Oh, and there's the real reason I dislike doing these maps. They expose my bad scribbling skills.

Keep in mind that is not at all to scale. But roughly, I kept going Northeast on ocean (and it blew my mind on how large a modern ocean can get, even if it's seemingly never too far from land at any point), saw land routinely to my East with a shore that was also running Northeast, and I also saw land once to the North. So take most of that as "not to scale" and "approximate". If my world lives long enough for me to get to that point, it'll be interesting to see how much it does/doesn't match up with what I remember.

The Green lines are known shores, and the one Yellow line is an expected possible shore since I know there's oceans around it so I expect those two may connect.

Way Northeast (the Black W for "warm" again) is where I found a warm Shattered savanna of sorts (like at spawn) but it seemed small and wasn't a formal hot area, which disappointed me.

I didn't find anything particularly exciting the second way though.

Quote from Zeno410»

Don't go caving if it's too risky. It just feels kind of off when you have so many mentions of cave openings (an important feature to modern minecraft) but never describe what's inside.

Well, I won't go caving.

I try to get pictures that show the opening itself and some of the land around it. Looking inside them from a position that is too close isn't just risky, but it would have all of my cave pictures end up being "the same thing" of pictures of near darkness. So I felt a far enough shot that shows the features of the terrain and opening while also showing the size/shape inside a bit was the best compromise. Maybe I wasn't right on that. Some upcoming finds have multiple pictures and slightly riskier ones but I can only do so much for caves. Videos would do better but similarly, they'd be short, dark, and... seemingly pointless to do often.

Season 3: Episode 20

With the first of many, many maps completed, it was time to start on the next.

I wasn't expected to start getting into some of (key words) of the good stuff so quick. Second map in and we're already going to be splitting updates down to less than a map worth of content, because each map is going to have that much more. This one also gets a video.

I head East along the Southern edge of the new map.



I can't remember if I did any ice boating here. Since I've been doing a lot of boating on water and ice mixed in the frozen oceans I probably was tired of it, and the cold region is about to end shortly so I may have gotten some exercise in here.

Beyond the cold region is more of the expected old growth taiga and regular taiga, and a bit in I start to find some rivers.

Shortly after finding water on land, I find more from the sky.



It's somewhere roughly in the middle of noon and the end of day light, so this keeps me on edge.

I reach the Eastern edge of the map and turn West again. There's a plateau in front of me that I was able to sneak beneath on the pass below this one, and to the Northwest I spot the forest opening up into plains, as well as a village it holds. I should be South of the initial expedition I made when I went to "the area of interest" and the way I took had me going through a lot of plains with plateaus and villages. I expect this might be the Southern border of that larger region.



I climb the ridge and sleep and get a nice morning overview of the clear are to the North I'll pass on later sweeps.



This is showing off some of what I love about 1.18's terrain. While plateau formations aren't uncommon, they can be gradual, and the large slops make for nice, large hills. The terrain being cut through it with rivers or cavern openings (hard to tell which it is from here) is something I personally love.

I also see cherry blossom groves in this distance. The smaller portion on the right is insignificant, but the larger one in the distance has me wondering, as I might know where that is. If it is where I think it is... I'm starting to get there.

For now though, we have more tree covered terrain and ridges to contend with to the West. While not the greatest, I like old growth taigas (both visually and for how well they are done with the trees) as far as vanilla forests go.



Getting back to the Western edge where the cold region is, I see the region turns around and cuts back, so I shouldn't be expecting much of it to the North in this map at all. I also find another village. Notice how many of them I've been finding? And minor spoiler warning; this not only continues but accelerates.





I head North a bit, and both the cold region and the forest have ended here. What I see just about reinforced for certainty that I recognize exactly where I am.



Remember when I said I came down here originally and discovered the second cold region? This is actually where I first spotted it (but I missed the village, probably because the forest does a good job of hiding it, and because I wasn't focused on it). I was coming from the East (right) and used this area to more easily cross that deep cut in the terrain which has a river, and then I went Northwest (left and into the distance). That's where the good stuff is...

But for now I will head almost directly away from it and head East.

There's more forest but it's oak and not as harsh on terrain here. I do end up on top of the trees at one point (this is quickly becoming my thing), and not for nothing. I spot this...



Please go back in that hole.

A bit further ahead, I come across a lake, and make my way around it to the South. I find another cavern opening here, but it's not all that significant so this one doesn't get further looked at (don't worry, I make this up with the soon to come video).

The ridge is less harsh here, but I still make my way up the Northern hills of it and then spot the earlier village beyond it.



From here, I'm thinking that is the cherry blossom grove that I expect it to be, especially based on my confirmation a few images back above the cold region where I knew for sure where I was.

For that reason, I begin to make a video as I know approximately what is to the North (especially the Northwest). Here's the video, and the description follows. It's just under seven and a half minutes so it's not nearly as long as the last one. I know I say this with most but this one will show some more stutters a bit as I'm doing these updates ona render distance of 32. Playing with shaders and generating new terrain like that, and while recording, won't be entirely smooth, but it's by no means unplayable. Any hitches you see are likely from that (or perhaps just the video card instead of the CPU or Minecraft itself, as it may be reaching near its limits at times from the shaders, because I do internally render at above 4K resolution to simulate anti-aliasing, but these drops don't happen around Rubyville so I think it's mostly new chunk generation doing it).



I head into the village. I find a Black smith which has two diamonds! These will are nice.

I find the bell and of course have to ring it.

I see a tree blocking a house so I take the leaves off. Yes, I leave the tree. I don't intend to claim an inventory pace with a few pieces of wood, and taking it down to discard it doesn't sit well with me.

I notice here most of the doors are open. Do villages spawn with them in the open state? I don't think I've seen so many open before though. I close a few I pass but don't go out of my way to close all.

I start heading East and now I'm finally in clearer and less sharp terrain elevation shifts... not that there aren't any. I expect more to come, if anything.

Heading North, I see even higher terrain ahead, and the pretty grass color of a meadow.

I find a curious and large cave opening so I go in. Unfortunately, I happen across a creeper and this is why I don't check them often. I should have readied my shield before going that far in but I didn't. I get some looks inside in the time I do spend checking it though.

I start to head West again.

Most of the rest is running across the plains. I eventually see a mountain, a small one but one nonetheless, and reach the forest. It's here I end the video.

Within the forest is one of our obligatory forest fires.



Am... am I causing these if they don't exist until I generate the terrain? Interesting thought.

Just beyond that is a split cavern opening. I get a couple pictures but a subtle creeper within keeps me from investigating further.





For the most part it appears to "end" at most portions but there's some spots that look like they may connect to further tunnels or even larger caverns.

That will conclude this update. The rest of this map will be covered in the following update.