Seems like you should get some trade goods when that happens. And good timing, you get some transport right when you're planning another base. The llama can carry some maps; should be light enough.
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
I won't use them for transport as I I'd have to risk them in the nether and you can't ride them; you have to lead them (Edit: You can ride them but not use a saddle and control them I mean). If those leads break or the llamas get hit then my heart will break with them. I'm just going to let them enjoy their best life safely.
I should be okay on maps with both the ender chests and the nether network now. They're not that far. The new location portal will be a bit closer than the one for the first potential spot would have been.
Has it really been since May that I last played this!? Yes, apparently it has. Early may was the time stamp on the world selection screen.
I've updated from 1.20.1 to 1.21.3. (Why did nobody warn me the music for 1.21 rivaled the music from Caves and Cliffs and would make me cry!? Seriously, why is it so good!?) I am looking forward to new dogs!
I'll be in the process of adding update number titles to past entries since that is seriously overdue. It might not be the most original format ever, but I'm going to go with a "season" and "episode" format (it was that or "chapters" and "pages" and that one felt worse to me). There is no concrete criteria as to when a new season begins, but roughly, it will be when I shift to focus on a new region to explore and map. Since I've done two areas thus far, the next will be the third, thus I will be "starting" from here as season three.
Edit: This is now season 4, since I split the first region into being covered by two seasons.
Season 4: Episode 18
Here's Gaia!
Specifically, that's Rubyville, my main settlement, with Garnet Village in the background.
Hm, maybe when I add a table of contents to the first post for links to the updates, I should add a small index naming and describing important places? I don't have that many though, so I'm not sure if it's even needed.
It's mostly the same as before, but I did carry over the arches I made in my 1.8 world. I love them.
I did some light caving near Rubyville to get coal and iron. At one point, I came across a cave that leads outside, and seeing this was something else!
After doing a world in 1.6 and then especially 1.8, this terrain generation was a treat!
If you recall, I left off needing to find a place to settle in the new region. I had already had one "maybe chosen" but then I took my break. Final Fantasy IX was calling!
Well, I'm going with that chosen spot, so let the progress formally begin. Yeah... that first view might be a big part in why I chose it.
I then started digging under the house because I needed to make a room for the map and portal. While digging the staircase for the latter, I started hearing a lot of mobs. I thought it might be a cave, but there were just too many zombies, so I started thinking it might be a dungeon. It turns out, that was the case.
And, as usual, what about my chest!? I keep finding ones without any.
As I finished the house, friends showed up.
Here's the finished thing. Yes, this will be a much smaller location than my second one was.
Later, I decided to somewhat alter the front path and line it with flowers and fences instead.
Seriously... that view!*1.8 crawls away in shame hoping to be unnoticed*
If I do anything else at all, it will be a bridge or docks on the river, but this will it be it otherwise.
Here's the map room. This region will be 6 x 9 so it's taller than it is wide, hence the high ceiling and narrow room. While I am using the nether to aide me a bit now (but remember, no shulker boxes), I sort of unofficially planned on doing either 9 x 6 or 6 x 9 areas going forward, but that won't always be the case. It is for this one though. If you're wondering why those sizes, that many maps fits into an inventory and ender chest which was important before I started using the nether.
I already did eight maps, and I cross referenced my main map (in Rubyville) to see where they needed to be, and this was it.
The map my home is on isn't one of them; it's in the row North of these, and I'll be starting with that as the first map, and then three others nearby (in a 2 x 2 area).
This will intentionally be a short update and I'll stop it here and the next one will be soon. I'm actually already... quite far in. Who knew I'd be so involved in interesting terrain after doing boring terrain? (That's asked sarcastically.)
A location index is useful if you have multiple named landmarks worth regularly mentioning, even if they aren't the most important. For me, naming locations sounds far nicer than calling them something like "the frozen mountains to the northwest."
Your new home is in a lovely spot. Stepping outside and being greeted by the views of the river and distant cherry grove hills is definitely something else.
Since the initial map doesn't include my home area, the first thing to do was, of course, my immediate area. I would do the map my home itself was on, check where that aligned on the map, and then go from there.
I missed this soooo much...
The underlying terrain generation, well, you know.... actually existing, is what stands out to me as the biggest change between this world and the older versions I just played. That "seen one, why go on" feel I had before is just gone. Obviously all terrain becomes repetitive once you've seen enough of it and it is no longer novel, but having innate terrain generation and not just biomes controlling it does wonders on pushing that point back.
The first map was, as expected, a lot of vast plains since I chose to settle in one, and my home ended up being near the middle of the first map.
This little valley (in the same spot my house overlooks) was lovely.
Northwest of my house was something I had spotted while settling, but never yet checked it out, and that was this village.
This village had two blacksmiths!
I headed back East, and got a look back at it.
And also, a look South at my house. A close eye may notice this is before I altered the front a bit. Sometimes, my progress is "scattered" and I'll do one thing, then do another, then go back to the first, so to make it easier to follow, I'll reorder some things (I only ever do this with builds and not exploration though). So when I altered the front of the house, it happened after this map.
Not all was vast plains though! There were plateaus and forests going on too.
It's telling that I see something like that and get excited at the thought of having to climb some of those here and there, as opposed to being annoyed with altitude changes in 1.8. In 1.8, it was too often, and almost always steep, so it was basically everywhere (particualrly in forests). In forests where there was no views either so you'd just be running and smack into these micro steep plateaus all the time that needed dealt with. But anyway, that will be on the nearby map and not this one, and I might even be able to go around it and map it all.
To the North, I found another village that would be on the next map North.
That concluded the first map, so I returned home (did I even leave, really!?) and checked where it aligned adjacent to the existing map.
I decided I would do the maps West, Northwest, and North next.
The next map would shift us from plains to forests, and here's another example of where 1.18 just humiliates 1.8 (or rather, 1.7 through 1.17).
In previous versions, those forests would just be constant rugged "hills" with steep walls. Annoying to traverse and with limited visibility. Not so here. Unironically, 1.18 is flatter than what was immediately before it, and I have no idea why people are convincing themselves otherwise.
But that doesn't mean it's entirely flat most of the time like 1.6 and prior, either.
When you get altitude variety, it's either more subtle, or if it is extreme (and it definitely is at times!), it's not thrown everywhere like it was in 1.7 through 1.17.
Of course, forests are also helped by the return of the large oak. Sometimes one small difference goes a long way. Tree spacing seems like it might be a bit different too? I don't feel like I'm having as much difficulty zipping through forests, even with the annoyingly small/low canopy trees still existing everywhere. Or maybe it's just the terrain being more navigable.
I found a Pink sheep here in this birch forest, which I feel is definitely notable enough to point out.
Far more exciting, however... was this!
New doggies! This is what I updated for! Of course I tamed them.
However, a small problem arose with this. Ocean would be an issue since I didn't have any leads, at least not on me. I expected there may be some oceans, but for now, I continued on and got what I could. If I had to, I'd return home as I'm not far, and return to Rubyville for the leads.
North was shifting to taiga types of forests (maybe more new dogs!?), and there was a ruined portal spotted to the West.
It was quite large, and I skipped on the gold block since it was high up and had lava beneath it, though I should have grabbed it.
The next map (Northwest corner of the four) started with a shipwreck. My dog can't talk, but if it could, it would probably be declaring "I found this, not her, it was all me". It looks so proud, haha.
Further North on the Western side was vast ocean and I expected this eventually. I know there's a large ocean East of my main village, and that's about where I'm reaching now that I'm getting further North.
To the North on the Eastern side was a shift back to plains, and eventually I climbed a small hill and saw this village with... whatever is going on in the background. Coincidentally, some new 1.21 music played right as it came into view. (Why is this music so good!?)
Who needs ravines where you have these? (Just kidding, because I was actually seeing a number of ravines too.)
Starting the final map in the Northeast, I reached the village spotted off the North edge of the first map.
To the East was a glimpse of more cherry groves, but it might just be a small one.
I came across this rather well hidden cave opening (I came from the right) in a forest.
On the Eastern edge of the map, I spotted a ruined portal, but it would be on the next map, so I wouldn't be going for it now.
Instead, what I be going to was this medium cave opening, and it appears a ravine may have been involved as part of it.
Guess who just got three more dogs!? They are the same forest type, but yes, I tamed them anyway.
What I plan to do is eventually get two of each dog type to have in Rubyville. I already have two of this type, so these three would reside at my current new house.
After finishing the map, I returned home and added the new additions.
Here's my plans going forward (and since I'm much further ahead, this is how it ends up going).
I hope my crayon scribbles aren't too difficult to follow.
The Red circles denote locations with nether portals. The only reason one exists to the South so close is because that is where I was initially going to settle before deciding to settle where I instead did. So I can use that nether portal for faster access to some areas South, which is funny since my home is situated more South within the region it is in. The far North will become the area that requires long trips to and from.
However, a small problem arose with this. Ocean would be an issue since I didn't have any leads, at least not on me. I expected there may be some oceans, but for now, I continued on and got what I could. If I had to, I'd return home as I'm not far, and return to Rubyville for the leads.
If you're very lucky and find a wandering trader, getting the llamas into a boat and then breaking the boat will allow you to obtain the leads without causing any harm.
One of my favorite minor additions in 1.21 is the ability to attach boats to a lead as it makes transporting a large number of mobs more convenient (and also requires half the number of leads). In prior versions, where the mobs would have to follow you by swimming, their leads could easily break depending on how you maneuver the boat.
Yes, coming from 1.6 and 1.8 back to current versions with the better boat controls was already a nice change, but the change with leads made it even better. Those always had a tendency to break on me before (even when walking) and I haven't had one break yet since trying it.
Unfortunately... I run into some troubles in the upcoming updates that involve transporting mobs with boats, but I eventually figure out what's going on. It's a mix between "player error" and "unintuitive design" on the game's part that I wasn't familiar with.
Those areas are very uncommon and usually small, and I'm pretty glad for that because I don't mind them like this, but I wouldn't want them to be much more common. They seem to be near ocean a lot of the time, though I think I've found some a bit inland. I guess they're just a small sliver of "amplified terrain lite", of sorts.
This update (and the next few) will be a little longer than my usual ones. I decided to go that route over "twice as many, twice as frequent shorter ones".
There's some good and bad things that occur this update...
This update will cover a row (1 x 4) maps to the South. I'll head to the portal just South, and from there, start with the Western map and work my way East.
It's interesting that there's a hot and dry desert on that island, albeit tiny, and surrounded by a lot of hot and wet(ter) biomes, like savanna, jungle, and mangrove swamp. Yet, along the very East, it shifts to snowy/icy biomes. So this update will be a bit of a gradient.
I expect that much of the first couple of maps might be ocean, and that ends up being the case.
After some ocean to start, I find land to the very South and it's the expected warmer biomes, but it can be seen shifting more temperate.
One of the bad things was something I only noticed just now while posting this. I missed a few spots in the ocean. That's going to bother me, and since they're not far, I'll have to go back and get those.
To the East was a jungle, and I found a few birds in here (pictured later).
I spotted this interesting formation to the South of the jungle, but it's off the map and won't be done for a while.
There's more savanna to the Southeast, and more jungle to the West...
...Which is interesting with the known snowy/cold region to the very East, so perhaps this band of warmer climate eventually ends, or perhaps it leads to a warmer region much further Southeast.
From the next jungle biome, a village was spotted to the South, but it's also off the map.
Here's the three birds I got, and having them able to perch on your shoulders while in the boat helps.
This second map was a lot of ocean too, and within it was a medium sparse jungle island. This presented me with... new doggies!
Here is where disaster struck. I can't remember if I didn't have leads for pulling more boats, or if I simply wanted to return the new pets to minimize the risk and management before I got any further, because I was still close to home (the return trip was entirely by boat until the nether portal).
I would take the birds through first, and then the dogs.
Shortly after going through the portal, one of my birds met its end to a ghast...
The need to "develop" this area to make it quicker to navigate was growing. I never did that yet since this was a portal I wasn't going to use much.
I returned home, placed the two remaining birds in the two cherry trees, and returned to mapping. I decided to continue mapping with the dogs and wait to bring them through until I had teraformed the area outside the portal a bit.
Here is where I had my first experience using the "new" leads and boats mechanic.
Interestingly, I was just going forward here and went to take the picture to show the dogs, and the shipwreck came into the picture at that same moment. Unlike the last shipwreck I found, this one had the cabin chest.
The ocean started giving way to land to the East, and there I found a ruined portal.
I also found a savanna village here, and my first time ever seeing an armadillo. They make funny noises when they ball up. this made me think of the dog armor, which I'd need a brush for, but I wasn't concerned with dropping my mapping for that now. It was here that I found out they randomly shed scutes too, so I did get one.
My other "disaster" occurred here, and it is one that would become a growing pain, although I would eventually figure it out.
The two dogs I had following me... it was now just one dog!? Why!? I didn't get a message that it had died. It was with me when I left the ocean. I retraced my steps from where I left the ocean and arrived at the village. I closed and reloaded the world, thinking maybe it was invisible or something. I even checked the logs to see if there were clues there. Nothing. It had just vanished insofar as I could tell.
I was sad, but I remembered the island had a third dog that I didn't tame, so I would return and get another one there. I suppose breeding is always a fallback but I would rescue any wild ones I could find first.
North of the village was another shipwreck, and this one also had a cabin chest.
As the sea shifted to land, the majority of the Northeast was plains, and the Southeast was various forest types. Namely, a dark oak forest was in the Southeast, and while I do stick to treetopping by default, I sometimes run along the ground. For whatever reason, I either feel safer (more navigable terrain?), or spawns seem less frequent in my experience after 1.18, so I'm more willing to run through them in this world than I was in my 1.8 world. Sometimes, I do find a spawn in one though...
And my new dog had fun with this one.
Originally, I ran onto a tree to escape it before noticing the dog would chase it. On top of that tree, I found this pretty cave...
I went inside for a better look, and...
"Wait, really!?"
I was sitting at 51/52 biomes for the longest time, and couldn't figure out which one I was missing since I figured that by now, I would have found at least one of each. I figured it was one I had found but simply hadn't stepped into, but I didn't think the missing one was a cave biome. I thought I had stepped into all of those. Apparently not.
So now I've formally found them all (minus the pale oak forest which doesn't exist for me since I'm not yet on 1.21.4).
I noticed that in 1.8, I wasn't able to progress on that achievement until after defeating the ender dragon (or at least, you can't accomplish/track it before then). Thank goodness that's not the case here.
There were more terrain surprises in this dark oak forest. There a pretty big spot that looked like what I can only describe as a "water swallow hole". There was exposed lush and dripstone caves in it.
Along the Northern edge, the first glimpses of the expected snowy region appeared.
To the South, between the dark oak forest and the snowy region, was old growth taiga. More caves (and overhangs) were found.
Also found was... "more doggies!" Haha.
I only found one, but that's still better than none.
I also found a ruined portal. It some golden carrots.
There was also more caves... a lot in this area, huh?
The remainder of the map, and this outing, had the edge of the snowy region, and not just that, but ice spikes!
So with that, I headed back to the sparse jungle island, got another dog of that type, and headed for home.
And... I ran into another disaster! Or, well... the same disaster, again.
I reached land, claimed both of my boats, watched all three dogs walk onto land, headed up to the portal, and noticed I only had two.
Again!? I looked back down the hill and didn't find a third dog. What is going on here!? I noticed it again only occurred after leaving a boat. I thought maybe something was bugged and, after leaving a boat, the dog was returning to it's last location before entering the boat? Or trying to and disappearing since it's out of range? I looked it up and wasn't able to find anything.
Hopefully I'll figure it out, and I'll be finding many more dogs regardless, so for now, I returned home and added the new maps.
The next area I'll explore will be the 2 x 2 area to the East.
I've occasionally encountered a similar-ish dog disappearance issue, and it also only seemed to occur after being in boats. The difference was that when I retraced my route back to the ocean, I managed to find them because they were simply sitting (for an unknown reason) around the spot where I made landfall. If the dogs wouldn't teleport to you but weren't in unloaded chunks either, a possibility could be that they were sitting — though if you've thoroughly searched all over the place then this might not be true.
The lush cave sure looks and feels different with the shaders. I don't think you've ever shown yourself actually being in one, so if there was only one biome you hadn't stepped into I would have expected that to be it. And congratulations on making the advancement!
Out of curiosity, did you wander into that ravine? That deepslate doesn't look very deep.
You may have noticed it already, but I'm surprised to see the axolotl. Those only spawn in full darkness and don't seem to wander around as much so it's rare you find one in an exposed cave opening.
I've occasionally encountered a similar-ish dog disappearance issue, and it also only seemed to occur after being in boats. The difference was that when I retraced my route back to the ocean, I managed to find them because they were simply sitting (for an unknown reason) around the spot where I made landfall.
So I have to spoil it now, but as I mentioned, I do have this figured it out now, but I didn't at the time I was playing through this part of the update.
What's happening is they are indeed sitting after leaving the boat. It's probably occurring because they are being right-clicking while they are in the boat, which probably adjusts their state between standing and sitting. It's not intuitive that this change occurs while in a boat, so perhaps it shouldn't.
In the next update, there's a short video near the very end, and I have a dog with me at the time and this happens. When it does, I run back and see it sitting where I got out (and rewatching the video confirms that I do indeed click the dog while it is in the boat at one point).
I then go back and check the shore by the portal where the second dog was lost, and find it sitting there. So apparent;y I was just missing them. I presume the third one (which is the first one I lost) is still near that village somewhere.
Out of curiosity, did you wander into that ravine? That deepslate doesn't look very deep.
I think I might be a bit below sea level and have climbed down a bit, yes, but I'm also still "on the surface" more or less. The ground was pretty sloped there, and you can still see the grass of the surface.
I was wondering what you meant by the deep slate since I didn't notice any, but now I see it. That does seem a bit shallow there, but maybe it's just the angle coupled with me being a little lower. Then again, the underground wasn't very deep before 1.18 and deep slate can start spawning around layer 7 or 8 I think.
As for the axolotl, I'm not sure. I did notice it due to the movement, but I'm not familiar with their spawning. If they need total darkness, then maybe it was further in and moved towards the opening more.
Sorry about the parrot. I don't consider two places Nether-connected unless there's an *enclosed* path. Because otherwise at some point I'll get ghasted and there may not even be a path anymore after the explosion.
I remember not having so many Dark Forest spawns in 1.7 but I thought there were a lot more in 1.12. 1.20 still seems like a lot to me.
I've always thought that having some achievements gated by passing others is problematic. With mods sometimes I get really weird results.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
Having a given nether route entirely enclosed isn't necessary for me, although I do like to have frequently used ones "developed" to minimize spots that slow me down. When bringing pets through, it can become a problem.
I don't know whether dark oak forests are more common overall or not, but they felt more "repetitive common" to me in my 1.8 world than in this one.
This will be a very small (maybe my smallest?) update. It's a bit of random changes with builds and stuff. Some of it may be "out of order" in that it happens after following updates. Most of it happens after the next update, which I hope to have up tomorrow, and some just happened today, which is many, many updates out. But it's stuff that doesn't pertain to the exploration so it won't matter showing some of it now. Again, the updates coming up will be larger than normal, so this helps shorten those updates, if a little.
The first one was an addition at my new location, and it was what I said might happen; a bridge.
I'll soon be done exploring to the South (and all of that has me using a separate nether portal anyway), so all exploration will have me leaving to the North, which is where the bridge is. Do I need a bridge to cross a small river? No. Did I want to anyway? The fact that I built it should answer that.
The other stuff was all nether side, basically reinforcing/developing terrain around nether portals, and one overworld compliment (the Southern portal I've been using lately).
Here's the nether side of the Southern portal. This is where I lost my parrot.
It's in a soul sand valley, which is actually great for getting bones.
I found out that stairs on top of soul sand still slows you down, at least on the bottom half, so I had to replace some with soul soil. I also filled in any gaps and replaced any areas with soul sand in front of it with soul soil. Now it's a quick and uninterrupted run through, which is how I like things. If it's exposed, that's fine. As long as I can run uninterrupted, and with fewer jumps, then it's fine by me.
Here's the overworld side of the same portal.
I copied the portal in Rubyville, except the mangrove wood portions are dark oak instead, and the mud bricks became tuff bricks, which is the first time I used the new block.
As I mentioned in my last post, I figured out what was happening with the dogs, so I checked near the portal, and... yes, there it was.
The last change was the nether portal (nether side only) to my main portal in Rubyville. It was the lone portal remaining as the default 2 x 3 size. I feel more comfortable, for whatever reason, with 3 x 4 size portals minimum, and often rebuild them to that size.
It was also in a very open area, and it was my main portal, so... I wanted to surround it with a shrine (one of my go-tos for these) for protection and decorative reasons. I stayed with the "deep slate built with nether brick accents" since the nearby staircase looks like that.
In retrospect, since I was rebuilding it anyway, and since that involved expanding the platform, I could have moved it slightly North (out over the lava), as this would make it return to me to the same portal in Rubyville, and not the one slightly North, but... oh well. Long ago, I put work in terforming a route from that portal to Rubyville anyway, so it's fine.
Next update, I'll be doing that 2 x 2 region to the North. To give you an idea of how far behind my updates are, I've done four extra outings and am starting a fifth. Three of those outings were four maps, and one of them was a whopping ten (yes, ten!) maps. So I'm closing in (sort... of...) on finishing this region already!
I like the look of the shrine with that dramatic basalt delta terrain in the background. It's certainly nice that stone-type blocks like deepslate are resistant to ghast fireball explosions to make building projects in the nether viable.
This update will be the unexplored 2 x 2 area Northeast of where I settled. Get ready for some deja vu starting this update (and continuing into later ones), and I'll explain why soon.
Things started off with a ruined portal, one I had first spotted doing a nearby map earlier. It had a golden apple, which are always among the best to find (many golden carrots are about as good in my mind).
The map quickly shifted to ocean.
In the Northeast, this village on a hillside on the shore was spotted, and it was here that I remembered where I was. This gave me clues as to what I could expect coming up.
For those who have forgotten, or just didn't know, when I venture into a new larger region that hasn't been mapped yet in the hopes of finding a place to settle, I do so without mapping. Last time I did this, I still showed things I was finding along the way... and this is one of them. So I've now reached my "initial blind path" that I took when first venturing into this region.
I'll include a marked map at the end of the update to show what I mean.
Anyway, here's said village.
A rare ruined portal in the ocean exposed above the surface was found on the next map. From a distance, I confused it for the mast of a shipwreck. This one had a number of golden carrots, so I got two of the best ruined portal finds back to back.
This should be more deja vu; that cliff side spot.
It was here that I was originally venturing South in the ocean before finding the dark oak forest that contained the first woodland mansion (and thus far, still the only one) that I found. That's the same ark oak forest to the East of where I was going to settle, where the Southern portal is... until I relocated Northwest to where I am.
For whatever reason, I didn't get many pictures of the next map despite it having some variety. The cold region starts here, but other than a ruined portal (and with a Golden apple; third times a charm!?), little else of note was found here. There was a neat cave, but I showed it long ago and didn't stop immediately by it, so I didn't get pictures.
The start of the next map had me overlooking the cold region, which was pushing its boundary West here. It was a lot of frozen ocean which, spoiler alert, I will be seeing a lot of in many upcoming updates. I love this biome... in moderation.
Luckily, most of this spot was before that happened so there's more land to the East, and a truly rare thing was found here. A village was found here, and while those aren't rare, abandoned villages are! These are something like one in fifty (?) and this is only the second I've ever found.
The dog was found up nearby. It's the original common variant, but I still need a second one of that type, so I tamed it.
Unlike the first abandoned village I found, this one still had many former residents. I imagine most villagers will burn before seeing them, and the few I saw either were either trapped in cobwebs (odd, but funny) or armored.
Making it all the more unlikely, not one, but two structures were found so close, they may as well be part of the village. A ruined portal and igloo were here.
Making it even better, the ruined portal had a golden apple (three of the last four!), and the igloo had a basement, for another!?
As I went to leave, I found out that maybe the igloo at least wasn't abandoned, haha. I pet the llamas, and was on my way.
North was more frozen ocean, but near the center of the map was another village I had originally seen before, and it was on the border of the cold region near a swamp. This swamp and village spot was originally where I first spotted the cold region.
The next and final map had a ruined portal, and it ended my spree of golden apples.
In the Southeast was that hillside village seen from the ocean during the first map.
Nearby, I spotted something else that I saw the first time I passed through the area, but forgot about until now; a pillager outpost!
I would come across it on my next pass, and even my dog was ready.
To the West was another ruined portal, and while the chest contents were okay at most, a gold block was present. Effectively, this is a around a golden apple worth anyway, so these are always great to find.
Just outside the pillager outpost was a Pink sheep! Beyond that, is the third ruined portal of this map... and I've not even explored about half of it! I feel like there's a lot of rare things coming together here.
Unwilling to risk my dog, I had it wait nearby and went after the pillager outpost. With better armor and enchantments, I find the small risk worthwhile for the chance of armor trim and horns. This one paid off.
"Speaking of which... I've been through tons of battles, I'm a seasoned pro now" so I have to demonstrate it!
The bad omen also drops as a bottle now, and I was surprised to find it at level IV, but this is my first time dealing with this aspect since the changes.
Here's the contents of the nearby ruined portal, which I almost ran off and forgot. While the chest contents weren't much, a gold block was present.
Back West was a fourth ruined portal in half a map worth of terrain!? Like the last one, it didn't have much in the chest but there was a gold block.
In the North was a village with a blacksmith, which had a bit more gold.
There would have been a small video here for the remainder of the map, but little is found. There was a cave, but... I'll skip the upload for showing just that. The original purpose for keeping the video was to show the exact moment I figured out what was going on with the "disappearing dogs", but well... that was already covered so again, I'll skip uploading a "now meaningless" video. I have way too much content to get through as it is.
After completing the four maps, I headed home and updated the map.
Here's roughly the path I took when first venturing into this region.
It's not exact, especially in the parts still not shown, but it's approximate. I headed East from Rubyville across the ocean and landed near a Birch forest, which eventually brought me to windswept hills. Those brought me to the spot where I travel onto the explored part of this map, and when I found ocean, I didn't want to go any further East since I was planning on having it as a 6 x 9 region and didn't went to end up too far towards an edge (which I did anyway in the end).
From there, the first two Yellow circled spots are the villages I mentioned.
The third is the cliff side area.
The fourth is the woodland mansion.
The Orange circle at the end of the path is the would-be settlement spot that is now the Southern portal.
The Red circle is where I did settle instead.
More of my original route will be seen in later updates, but that's, uh... still like three updates out. The next outing will be a column (1 x 4) above the Northwestern-most map. I expect a fair bit of it to be ocean, due to the Eastern edge on my main map being ocean in that spot.
Partially exposed ruined portals are quite uncommon for me (although not extremely rare; I think I've found six or seven across several different worlds) as they can only be found in very shallow parts of the ocean, which are usually small in area. It also seems like nearly every single underwater ruined portal comes with a gold block, while around half of the terrestrial ones don't. Perhaps related to how certain blocks in ruined portals can get replaced by air upon generation.
Frozen oceans are lovely to explore until you walk out from behind an iceberg and accidentally stumble upon a polar bear with a cub ... but yes, it seems to be one of the few biomes where the size of its defining feature (i.e. icebergs) is larger in size than its typical real-life counterpart. And in a good way.
The ominous bottle that illager captains drop is always a level from 1 to 5, with each level having an equal probability of dropping.
I don't mind the iceberg size, and I don't even mind the biome itself. It was more that the old "monotonous, repeated effort" feeling of exploring 1.7 through 1.17 terrain felt similar in this biome in particular. You're often repeatedly going between water and ice, and not enough of either, so you're alternating between either swimming and placing/breaking a boat, and running a lot. To be fair, I did just come off a 1.8 world, and I am completely mapping a world so this wouldn't be nearly as bad in natural conditions, but most other aspects of 1.18+ terrain generation avoid this feeling for me (so maybe it says a lot that it's really only this biome doesn't, and that it's still far better than forests in the other versions). It might also be because I'm finding a lot of snowy/ice regions, which is humorous given my desperate search for one in my prior world. Here, I'm having a bit of the opposite problem.
This entire region is now done. I'm just that far behind on updates. I've currently got 7 folders of screenshots. They are arranged by outing, but I think one outing may be split across two folders. Even then, all but one of the outings are much longer than usual so I might break some up. It takes a lot of time and effort to maintain these threads without falling behind or overdoing the updates, especially when you're playing a lot I guess.
I don't mind the iceberg size, and I don't even mind the biome itself. It was more that the old "monotonous, repeated effort" feeling of exploring 1.7 through 1.17 terrain felt similar in this biome in particular.
This entire region is now done. I'm just that far behind on updates. I've currently got 7 folders of screenshots. They are arranged by outing, but I think one outing may be split across two folders. Even then, all but one of the outings are much longer than usual so I might break some up. It takes a lot of time and effort to maintain these threads without falling behind or overdoing the updates, especially when you're playing a lot I guess.
Yeah, something about the icy seas is off. I haven't put my mind to it to try to figure out what it is. Probably that the variation isn't fractal.
Oh, do I ever know about having too much stuff in the buffer! Sometimes I'd stop playing for a week or two to shrink it. Also (you may already do this) I found I should write up the episodes shortly after they're played or I start to forget what I did.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
This update will cover a four map column to the North. This aligns with the current Eastern edge of my primary world map. it's ocean in that spot.
If you remember that wild terrain formation near a village a few updates back, just North of that is my starting point.
As I head North from there, I'm along a shore, so there is indeed ocean here as expected.
I pass what I believe is the spot I initially landed at when I traveled East from Rubyville. It was a birch forest. North of that was a dark oak forest, and beyond that was more birch forest.
"Dear 1.7+ terrain, this is how you do forest hills!"
I spot a shipwreck of the shore.
A bit further South is a ruined portal.
I guess the horse armor is notable enough to point out? I still have less than a row of them despite how much I've explored, so they're probably rare enough outside dungeons (or at least not common in the surface structures I do tend to check).
The rest of the map is a lot of ocean, but an old growth taiga is on a peninsula in the Northwest. It is here that I find a pair of surprises...
I thought old growth taigas had the Black wolf? Apparently, there's technically two types of old growth taiga (pine and spruce), and each has a different type. That's interesting to know... but what's more important is I now have two new dogs!
To the East was a cave with a lush cave within that I got a picture of.
To the North, another shipwreck was found.
Not far from the last cave, I found an absolutely massive crater/sinkhole opening on the surface. Unfortunately, it was mostly just that and not a cave itself, but it was still neat to find and see.
The Eastern edge of the map brought a real shock; there was a jungle showing up! So it's getting warmer here. Could I expect a larger hot dry region though?
The final find on this second map was a ruined portal.
The next map was largely ocean (well, again), and it is here that some deja vu will begin.
This is along the Northeast of my world map... and when I was doing that point long ago, it was getting interesting here so I veered off the map a bit back then, so some of these might be familiar sights.
Here's a stony peaks mountain biome that transitions to a colder jagged peaks. This is that savanna biome to the east of the larger desert/badlands biome that's a few maps West from here. Next to it is a village.
North from that, and to begin the next map, was that cherry grove biome next to a second mountain, and you can just make out the illager outpost within it. Apparently, those can't spawn in cherry groves in Bedrock, but can in Java.
I can't remember the purpose of this next picture. "Pretty terrain" maybe? That's usually it half of the time.
North of that cherry grove was even more mountains, and larger and more majestic ones, too. Now we're getting to some good stuff!
The illager outpost, however, didn't have much good stuff. Well... it did. But at the point I'm at now, it's horns I don't have which are considered good stuff, and it lacked one of those. No horn blowing gloating for me this time, I guess.
Here's plains to the Northwest. I know an ocean is just a bit further North. Note the savanna seen just off the edge, as well as the same savanna in the Southwest. Keep the presence of those hot biomes in mind...
In another cherry grove here was a ruined portal.
One that I've apparently already looted! I'm guessing the cobblestone was because I had a full inventory. I took it back. Thanks, me from the past. It is just off the edge of the map and in an area I went into, so I guess it's no surprise I've checked it already.
It did still have a gold block so I took that.
Heading South brought me across more mountains.
And also a lot of caves/cave-like surface cuts or openings.
When I reached the Eastern edge near the ocean, I froze.
Terrain like this is why I'll never stop loving the changes of 1.18.
Finishing the map brought more passes along mountains, some of which had large caves in them!
Here's the "reverse view" from a few pictures back.
And the very end of the map had a real shock... a frozen/snowy region!? What!? What!? Like... WHAT!?
So, I have found yet another snowy and cold region, and the hunt for a larger hot dry region continues on. Granted, I didn't expect one anywhere near this area since one just ended nearby, but... still.
I headed back home and updated the map.
I have just under half the map completed (in real time, I'm completely done).
And now... I am about to do my second largest single outing, ever. My largest ever outing was 12 maps and this will be 10. I'm looking to get some of that cold region, and not the one I just found, out of the way. This would also be the last time I use that Southern portal (at least for mapping insofar this region goes).
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Curse PremiumSeems like you should get some trade goods when that happens. And good timing, you get some transport right when you're planning another base. The llama can carry some maps; should be light enough.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
I won't use them for transport as I I'd have to risk them in the nether and you can't ride them; you have to lead them (Edit: You can ride them but not use a saddle and control them I mean). If those leads break or the llamas get hit then my heart will break with them. I'm just going to let them enjoy their best life safely.
I should be okay on maps with both the ender chests and the nether network now. They're not that far. The new location portal will be a bit closer than the one for the first potential spot would have been.
And... we're back in Gaia!
Has it really been since May that I last played this!? Yes, apparently it has. Early may was the time stamp on the world selection screen.
I've updated from 1.20.1 to 1.21.3. (Why did nobody warn me the music for 1.21 rivaled the music from Caves and Cliffs and would make me cry!? Seriously, why is it so good!?) I am looking forward to new dogs!
I'll be in the process of adding update number titles to past entries since that is seriously overdue. It might not be the most original format ever, but I'm going to go with a "season" and "episode" format (it was that or "chapters" and "pages" and that one felt worse to me). There is no concrete criteria as to when a new season begins, but roughly, it will be when I shift to focus on a new region to explore and map. Since I've done two areas thus far, the next will be the third, thus I will be "starting" from here as season three.
Edit: This is now season 4, since I split the first region into being covered by two seasons.
Season 4: Episode 18
Here's Gaia!
Specifically, that's Rubyville, my main settlement, with Garnet Village in the background.
Hm, maybe when I add a table of contents to the first post for links to the updates, I should add a small index naming and describing important places? I don't have that many though, so I'm not sure if it's even needed.
It's mostly the same as before, but I did carry over the arches I made in my 1.8 world. I love them.
After doing a world in 1.6 and then especially 1.8, this terrain generation was a treat!
If you recall, I left off needing to find a place to settle in the new region. I had already had one "maybe chosen" but then I took my break. Final Fantasy IX was calling!
Well, I'm going with that chosen spot, so let the progress formally begin. Yeah... that first view might be a big part in why I chose it.
I then started digging under the house because I needed to make a room for the map and portal. While digging the staircase for the latter, I started hearing a lot of mobs. I thought it might be a cave, but there were just too many zombies, so I started thinking it might be a dungeon. It turns out, that was the case.
And, as usual, what about my chest!? I keep finding ones without any.
As I finished the house, friends showed up.
Here's the finished thing. Yes, this will be a much smaller location than my second one was.
Later, I decided to somewhat alter the front path and line it with flowers and fences instead.
Seriously... that view! *1.8 crawls away in shame hoping to be unnoticed*
If I do anything else at all, it will be a bridge or docks on the river, but this will it be it otherwise.
Here's the map room. This region will be 6 x 9 so it's taller than it is wide, hence the high ceiling and narrow room. While I am using the nether to aide me a bit now (but remember, no shulker boxes), I sort of unofficially planned on doing either 9 x 6 or 6 x 9 areas going forward, but that won't always be the case. It is for this one though. If you're wondering why those sizes, that many maps fits into an inventory and ender chest which was important before I started using the nether.
I already did eight maps, and I cross referenced my main map (in Rubyville) to see where they needed to be, and this was it.
The map my home is on isn't one of them; it's in the row North of these, and I'll be starting with that as the first map, and then three others nearby (in a 2 x 2 area).
This will intentionally be a short update and I'll stop it here and the next one will be soon. I'm actually already... quite far in. Who knew I'd be so involved in interesting terrain after doing boring terrain? (That's asked sarcastically.)
A location index is useful if you have multiple named landmarks worth regularly mentioning, even if they aren't the most important. For me, naming locations sounds far nicer than calling them something like "the frozen mountains to the northwest."
Your new home is in a lovely spot. Stepping outside and being greeted by the views of the river and distant cherry grove hills is definitely something else.
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Curse PremiumEnough zombies there?
The larger open areas on newgen certainly are good for bases. Better views.
Arrgh on those biome dividing lines. Just a little directional noise could have made them so much better without creating little isolated spots.
There's absolutely no need for inventive chapter titles. Season and episode is just fine. There is a reason it's so common.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
Season 4: Episode 19
Since the initial map doesn't include my home area, the first thing to do was, of course, my immediate area. I would do the map my home itself was on, check where that aligned on the map, and then go from there.
I missed this soooo much...
The underlying terrain generation, well, you know.... actually existing, is what stands out to me as the biggest change between this world and the older versions I just played. That "seen one, why go on" feel I had before is just gone. Obviously all terrain becomes repetitive once you've seen enough of it and it is no longer novel, but having innate terrain generation and not just biomes controlling it does wonders on pushing that point back.
This little valley (in the same spot my house overlooks) was lovely.
Northwest of my house was something I had spotted while settling, but never yet checked it out, and that was this village.
This village had two blacksmiths!
I headed back East, and got a look back at it.
And also, a look South at my house. A close eye may notice this is before I altered the front a bit. Sometimes, my progress is "scattered" and I'll do one thing, then do another, then go back to the first, so to make it easier to follow, I'll reorder some things (I only ever do this with builds and not exploration though). So when I altered the front of the house, it happened after this map.
Not all was vast plains though! There were plateaus and forests going on too.
It's telling that I see something like that and get excited at the thought of having to climb some of those here and there, as opposed to being annoyed with altitude changes in 1.8. In 1.8, it was too often, and almost always steep, so it was basically everywhere (particualrly in forests). In forests where there was no views either so you'd just be running and smack into these micro steep plateaus all the time that needed dealt with. But anyway, that will be on the nearby map and not this one, and I might even be able to go around it and map it all.
To the North, I found another village that would be on the next map North.
That concluded the first map, so I returned home (did I even leave, really!?) and checked where it aligned adjacent to the existing map.
I decided I would do the maps West, Northwest, and North next.
The next map would shift us from plains to forests, and here's another example of where 1.18 just humiliates 1.8 (or rather, 1.7 through 1.17).
In previous versions, those forests would just be constant rugged "hills" with steep walls. Annoying to traverse and with limited visibility. Not so here. Unironically, 1.18 is flatter than what was immediately before it, and I have no idea why people are convincing themselves otherwise.
But that doesn't mean it's entirely flat most of the time like 1.6 and prior, either.
When you get altitude variety, it's either more subtle, or if it is extreme (and it definitely is at times!), it's not thrown everywhere like it was in 1.7 through 1.17.
Of course, forests are also helped by the return of the large oak. Sometimes one small difference goes a long way. Tree spacing seems like it might be a bit different too? I don't feel like I'm having as much difficulty zipping through forests, even with the annoyingly small/low canopy trees still existing everywhere. Or maybe it's just the terrain being more navigable.
I found a Pink sheep here in this birch forest, which I feel is definitely notable enough to point out.
Far more exciting, however... was this!
New doggies! This is what I updated for! Of course I tamed them.
However, a small problem arose with this. Ocean would be an issue since I didn't have any leads, at least not on me. I expected there may be some oceans, but for now, I continued on and got what I could. If I had to, I'd return home as I'm not far, and return to Rubyville for the leads.
North was shifting to taiga types of forests (maybe more new dogs!?), and there was a ruined portal spotted to the West.
It was quite large, and I skipped on the gold block since it was high up and had lava beneath it, though I should have grabbed it.
The next map (Northwest corner of the four) started with a shipwreck. My dog can't talk, but if it could, it would probably be declaring "I found this, not her, it was all me". It looks so proud, haha.
Further North on the Western side was vast ocean and I expected this eventually. I know there's a large ocean East of my main village, and that's about where I'm reaching now that I'm getting further North.
To the North on the Eastern side was a shift back to plains, and eventually I climbed a small hill and saw this village with... whatever is going on in the background. Coincidentally, some new 1.21 music played right as it came into view. (Why is this music so good!?)
Who needs ravines where you have these? (Just kidding, because I was actually seeing a number of ravines too.)
Starting the final map in the Northeast, I reached the village spotted off the North edge of the first map.
To the East was a glimpse of more cherry groves, but it might just be a small one.
I came across this rather well hidden cave opening (I came from the right) in a forest.
On the Eastern edge of the map, I spotted a ruined portal, but it would be on the next map, so I wouldn't be going for it now.
Instead, what I be going to was this medium cave opening, and it appears a ravine may have been involved as part of it.
Guess who just got three more dogs!? They are the same forest type, but yes, I tamed them anyway.
What I plan to do is eventually get two of each dog type to have in Rubyville. I already have two of this type, so these three would reside at my current new house.
After finishing the map, I returned home and added the new additions.
Here's my plans going forward (and since I'm much further ahead, this is how it ends up going).
I hope my crayon scribbles aren't too difficult to follow.
The Red circles denote locations with nether portals. The only reason one exists to the South so close is because that is where I was initially going to settle before deciding to settle where I instead did. So I can use that nether portal for faster access to some areas South, which is funny since my home is situated more South within the region it is in. The far North will become the area that requires long trips to and from.
If you're very lucky and find a wandering trader, getting the llamas into a boat and then breaking the boat will allow you to obtain the leads without causing any harm.
One of my favorite minor additions in 1.21 is the ability to attach boats to a lead as it makes transporting a large number of mobs more convenient (and also requires half the number of leads). In prior versions, where the mobs would have to follow you by swimming, their leads could easily break depending on how you maneuver the boat.
That's the most bizarre beach biome I have seen. You seem to have found quite a few instances of dramatic terrain on these maps.
Yes, coming from 1.6 and 1.8 back to current versions with the better boat controls was already a nice change, but the change with leads made it even better. Those always had a tendency to break on me before (even when walking) and I haven't had one break yet since trying it.
Unfortunately... I run into some troubles in the upcoming updates that involve transporting mobs with boats, but I eventually figure out what's going on. It's a mix between "player error" and "unintuitive design" on the game's part that I wasn't familiar with.
Those areas are very uncommon and usually small, and I'm pretty glad for that because I don't mind them like this, but I wouldn't want them to be much more common. They seem to be near ocean a lot of the time, though I think I've found some a bit inland. I guess they're just a small sliver of "amplified terrain lite", of sorts.
Season 4: Episode 20
This update (and the next few) will be a little longer than my usual ones. I decided to go that route over "twice as many, twice as frequent shorter ones".
There's some good and bad things that occur this update...
This update will cover a row (1 x 4) maps to the South. I'll head to the portal just South, and from there, start with the Western map and work my way East.
It's interesting that there's a hot and dry desert on that island, albeit tiny, and surrounded by a lot of hot and wet(ter) biomes, like savanna, jungle, and mangrove swamp. Yet, along the very East, it shifts to snowy/icy biomes. So this update will be a bit of a gradient.
I expect that much of the first couple of maps might be ocean, and that ends up being the case.
After some ocean to start, I find land to the very South and it's the expected warmer biomes, but it can be seen shifting more temperate.
One of the bad things was something I only noticed just now while posting this. I missed a few spots in the ocean. That's going to bother me, and since they're not far, I'll have to go back and get those.
I spotted this interesting formation to the South of the jungle, but it's off the map and won't be done for a while.
There's more savanna to the Southeast, and more jungle to the West...
...Which is interesting with the known snowy/cold region to the very East, so perhaps this band of warmer climate eventually ends, or perhaps it leads to a warmer region much further Southeast.
From the next jungle biome, a village was spotted to the South, but it's also off the map.
Here's the three birds I got, and having them able to perch on your shoulders while in the boat helps.
This second map was a lot of ocean too, and within it was a medium sparse jungle island. This presented me with... new doggies!
Here is where disaster struck. I can't remember if I didn't have leads for pulling more boats, or if I simply wanted to return the new pets to minimize the risk and management before I got any further, because I was still close to home (the return trip was entirely by boat until the nether portal).
I would take the birds through first, and then the dogs.
Shortly after going through the portal, one of my birds met its end to a ghast...
The need to "develop" this area to make it quicker to navigate was growing. I never did that yet since this was a portal I wasn't going to use much.
I returned home, placed the two remaining birds in the two cherry trees, and returned to mapping. I decided to continue mapping with the dogs and wait to bring them through until I had teraformed the area outside the portal a bit.
Here is where I had my first experience using the "new" leads and boats mechanic.
Interestingly, I was just going forward here and went to take the picture to show the dogs, and the shipwreck came into the picture at that same moment. Unlike the last shipwreck I found, this one had the cabin chest.
The ocean started giving way to land to the East, and there I found a ruined portal.
I also found a savanna village here, and my first time ever seeing an armadillo. They make funny noises when they ball up. this made me think of the dog armor, which I'd need a brush for, but I wasn't concerned with dropping my mapping for that now. It was here that I found out they randomly shed scutes too, so I did get one.
My other "disaster" occurred here, and it is one that would become a growing pain, although I would eventually figure it out.
The two dogs I had following me... it was now just one dog!? Why!? I didn't get a message that it had died. It was with me when I left the ocean. I retraced my steps from where I left the ocean and arrived at the village. I closed and reloaded the world, thinking maybe it was invisible or something. I even checked the logs to see if there were clues there. Nothing. It had just vanished insofar as I could tell.
I was sad, but I remembered the island had a third dog that I didn't tame, so I would return and get another one there. I suppose breeding is always a fallback but I would rescue any wild ones I could find first.
North of the village was another shipwreck, and this one also had a cabin chest.
As the sea shifted to land, the majority of the Northeast was plains, and the Southeast was various forest types. Namely, a dark oak forest was in the Southeast, and while I do stick to treetopping by default, I sometimes run along the ground. For whatever reason, I either feel safer (more navigable terrain?), or spawns seem less frequent in my experience after 1.18, so I'm more willing to run through them in this world than I was in my 1.8 world. Sometimes, I do find a spawn in one though...
And my new dog had fun with this one.
Originally, I ran onto a tree to escape it before noticing the dog would chase it. On top of that tree, I found this pretty cave...
I went inside for a better look, and...
"Wait, really!?"
I was sitting at 51/52 biomes for the longest time, and couldn't figure out which one I was missing since I figured that by now, I would have found at least one of each. I figured it was one I had found but simply hadn't stepped into, but I didn't think the missing one was a cave biome. I thought I had stepped into all of those. Apparently not.
So now I've formally found them all (minus the pale oak forest which doesn't exist for me since I'm not yet on 1.21.4).
I noticed that in 1.8, I wasn't able to progress on that achievement until after defeating the ender dragon (or at least, you can't accomplish/track it before then). Thank goodness that's not the case here.
There were more terrain surprises in this dark oak forest. There a pretty big spot that looked like what I can only describe as a "water swallow hole". There was exposed lush and dripstone caves in it.
Along the Northern edge, the first glimpses of the expected snowy region appeared.
To the South, between the dark oak forest and the snowy region, was old growth taiga. More caves (and overhangs) were found.
Also found was... "more doggies!" Haha.
I only found one, but that's still better than none.
I also found a ruined portal. It some golden carrots.
There was also more caves... a lot in this area, huh?
The remainder of the map, and this outing, had the edge of the snowy region, and not just that, but ice spikes!
So with that, I headed back to the sparse jungle island, got another dog of that type, and headed for home.
And... I ran into another disaster! Or, well... the same disaster, again.
I reached land, claimed both of my boats, watched all three dogs walk onto land, headed up to the portal, and noticed I only had two.
Again!? I looked back down the hill and didn't find a third dog. What is going on here!? I noticed it again only occurred after leaving a boat. I thought maybe something was bugged and, after leaving a boat, the dog was returning to it's last location before entering the boat? Or trying to and disappearing since it's out of range? I looked it up and wasn't able to find anything.
Hopefully I'll figure it out, and I'll be finding many more dogs regardless, so for now, I returned home and added the new maps.
The next area I'll explore will be the 2 x 2 area to the East.
I've occasionally encountered a similar-ish dog disappearance issue, and it also only seemed to occur after being in boats. The difference was that when I retraced my route back to the ocean, I managed to find them because they were simply sitting (for an unknown reason) around the spot where I made landfall. If the dogs wouldn't teleport to you but weren't in unloaded chunks either, a possibility could be that they were sitting — though if you've thoroughly searched all over the place then this might not be true.
The lush cave sure looks and feels different with the shaders. I don't think you've ever shown yourself actually being in one, so if there was only one biome you hadn't stepped into I would have expected that to be it. And congratulations on making the advancement!
Out of curiosity, did you wander into that ravine? That deepslate doesn't look very deep.
You may have noticed it already, but I'm surprised to see the axolotl. Those only spawn in full darkness and don't seem to wander around as much so it's rare you find one in an exposed cave opening.
So I have to spoil it now, but as I mentioned, I do have this figured it out now, but I didn't at the time I was playing through this part of the update.
What's happening is they are indeed sitting after leaving the boat. It's probably occurring because they are being right-clicking while they are in the boat, which probably adjusts their state between standing and sitting. It's not intuitive that this change occurs while in a boat, so perhaps it shouldn't.
In the next update, there's a short video near the very end, and I have a dog with me at the time and this happens. When it does, I run back and see it sitting where I got out (and rewatching the video confirms that I do indeed click the dog while it is in the boat at one point).
I then go back and check the shore by the portal where the second dog was lost, and find it sitting there. So apparent;y I was just missing them. I presume the third one (which is the first one I lost) is still near that village somewhere.
I think I might be a bit below sea level and have climbed down a bit, yes, but I'm also still "on the surface" more or less. The ground was pretty sloped there, and you can still see the grass of the surface.
I was wondering what you meant by the deep slate since I didn't notice any, but now I see it. That does seem a bit shallow there, but maybe it's just the angle coupled with me being a little lower. Then again, the underground wasn't very deep before 1.18 and deep slate can start spawning around layer 7 or 8 I think.
As for the axolotl, I'm not sure. I did notice it due to the movement, but I'm not familiar with their spawning. If they need total darkness, then maybe it was further in and moved towards the opening more.
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Curse PremiumSorry about the parrot. I don't consider two places Nether-connected unless there's an *enclosed* path. Because otherwise at some point I'll get ghasted and there may not even be a path anymore after the explosion.
I remember not having so many Dark Forest spawns in 1.7 but I thought there were a lot more in 1.12. 1.20 still seems like a lot to me.
I've always thought that having some achievements gated by passing others is problematic. With mods sometimes I get really weird results.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
Having a given nether route entirely enclosed isn't necessary for me, although I do like to have frequently used ones "developed" to minimize spots that slow me down. When bringing pets through, it can become a problem.
I don't know whether dark oak forests are more common overall or not, but they felt more "repetitive common" to me in my 1.8 world than in this one.
Season 4: Episode 21
This will be a very small (maybe my smallest?) update. It's a bit of random changes with builds and stuff. Some of it may be "out of order" in that it happens after following updates. Most of it happens after the next update, which I hope to have up tomorrow, and some just happened today, which is many, many updates out. But it's stuff that doesn't pertain to the exploration so it won't matter showing some of it now. Again, the updates coming up will be larger than normal, so this helps shorten those updates, if a little.
The first one was an addition at my new location, and it was what I said might happen; a bridge.
I'll soon be done exploring to the South (and all of that has me using a separate nether portal anyway), so all exploration will have me leaving to the North, which is where the bridge is. Do I need a bridge to cross a small river? No. Did I want to anyway? The fact that I built it should answer that.
Here's the nether side of the Southern portal. This is where I lost my parrot.
It's in a soul sand valley, which is actually great for getting bones.
I found out that stairs on top of soul sand still slows you down, at least on the bottom half, so I had to replace some with soul soil. I also filled in any gaps and replaced any areas with soul sand in front of it with soul soil. Now it's a quick and uninterrupted run through, which is how I like things. If it's exposed, that's fine. As long as I can run uninterrupted, and with fewer jumps, then it's fine by me.
Here's the overworld side of the same portal.
I copied the portal in Rubyville, except the mangrove wood portions are dark oak instead, and the mud bricks became tuff bricks, which is the first time I used the new block.
As I mentioned in my last post, I figured out what was happening with the dogs, so I checked near the portal, and... yes, there it was.
The last change was the nether portal (nether side only) to my main portal in Rubyville. It was the lone portal remaining as the default 2 x 3 size. I feel more comfortable, for whatever reason, with 3 x 4 size portals minimum, and often rebuild them to that size.
It was also in a very open area, and it was my main portal, so... I wanted to surround it with a shrine (one of my go-tos for these) for protection and decorative reasons. I stayed with the "deep slate built with nether brick accents" since the nearby staircase looks like that.
In retrospect, since I was rebuilding it anyway, and since that involved expanding the platform, I could have moved it slightly North (out over the lava), as this would make it return to me to the same portal in Rubyville, and not the one slightly North, but... oh well. Long ago, I put work in terforming a route from that portal to Rubyville anyway, so it's fine.
Next update, I'll be doing that 2 x 2 region to the North. To give you an idea of how far behind my updates are, I've done four extra outings and am starting a fifth. Three of those outings were four maps, and one of them was a whopping ten (yes, ten!) maps. So I'm closing in (sort... of...) on finishing this region already!
I like the look of the shrine with that dramatic basalt delta terrain in the background. It's certainly nice that stone-type blocks like deepslate are resistant to ghast fireball explosions to make building projects in the nether viable.
Season 4: Episode 22
This update will be the unexplored 2 x 2 area Northeast of where I settled. Get ready for some deja vu starting this update (and continuing into later ones), and I'll explain why soon.
Things started off with a ruined portal, one I had first spotted doing a nearby map earlier. It had a golden apple, which are always among the best to find (many golden carrots are about as good in my mind).
The map quickly shifted to ocean.
For those who have forgotten, or just didn't know, when I venture into a new larger region that hasn't been mapped yet in the hopes of finding a place to settle, I do so without mapping. Last time I did this, I still showed things I was finding along the way... and this is one of them. So I've now reached my "initial blind path" that I took when first venturing into this region.
I'll include a marked map at the end of the update to show what I mean.
Anyway, here's said village.
A rare ruined portal in the ocean exposed above the surface was found on the next map. From a distance, I confused it for the mast of a shipwreck. This one had a number of golden carrots, so I got two of the best ruined portal finds back to back.
This should be more deja vu; that cliff side spot.
It was here that I was originally venturing South in the ocean before finding the dark oak forest that contained the first woodland mansion (and thus far, still the only one) that I found. That's the same ark oak forest to the East of where I was going to settle, where the Southern portal is... until I relocated Northwest to where I am.
For whatever reason, I didn't get many pictures of the next map despite it having some variety. The cold region starts here, but other than a ruined portal (and with a Golden apple; third times a charm!?), little else of note was found here. There was a neat cave, but I showed it long ago and didn't stop immediately by it, so I didn't get pictures.
The start of the next map had me overlooking the cold region, which was pushing its boundary West here. It was a lot of frozen ocean which, spoiler alert, I will be seeing a lot of in many upcoming updates. I love this biome... in moderation.
Luckily, most of this spot was before that happened so there's more land to the East, and a truly rare thing was found here. A village was found here, and while those aren't rare, abandoned villages are! These are something like one in fifty (?) and this is only the second I've ever found.
The dog was found up nearby. It's the original common variant, but I still need a second one of that type, so I tamed it.
Unlike the first abandoned village I found, this one still had many former residents. I imagine most villagers will burn before seeing them, and the few I saw either were either trapped in cobwebs (odd, but funny) or armored.
Making it all the more unlikely, not one, but two structures were found so close, they may as well be part of the village. A ruined portal and igloo were here.
Making it even better, the ruined portal had a golden apple (three of the last four!), and the igloo had a basement, for another!?
As I went to leave, I found out that maybe the igloo at least wasn't abandoned, haha. I pet the llamas, and was on my way.
North was more frozen ocean, but near the center of the map was another village I had originally seen before, and it was on the border of the cold region near a swamp. This swamp and village spot was originally where I first spotted the cold region.
The next and final map had a ruined portal, and it ended my spree of golden apples.
In the Southeast was that hillside village seen from the ocean during the first map.
Nearby, I spotted something else that I saw the first time I passed through the area, but forgot about until now; a pillager outpost!
I would come across it on my next pass, and even my dog was ready.
To the West was another ruined portal, and while the chest contents were okay at most, a gold block was present. Effectively, this is a around a golden apple worth anyway, so these are always great to find.
Just outside the pillager outpost was a Pink sheep! Beyond that, is the third ruined portal of this map... and I've not even explored about half of it! I feel like there's a lot of rare things coming together here.
Unwilling to risk my dog, I had it wait nearby and went after the pillager outpost. With better armor and enchantments, I find the small risk worthwhile for the chance of armor trim and horns. This one paid off.
"Speaking of which... I've been through tons of battles, I'm a seasoned pro now" so I have to demonstrate it!
The bad omen also drops as a bottle now, and I was surprised to find it at level IV, but this is my first time dealing with this aspect since the changes.
Here's the contents of the nearby ruined portal, which I almost ran off and forgot. While the chest contents weren't much, a gold block was present.
Back West was a fourth ruined portal in half a map worth of terrain!? Like the last one, it didn't have much in the chest but there was a gold block.
In the North was a village with a blacksmith, which had a bit more gold.
There would have been a small video here for the remainder of the map, but little is found. There was a cave, but... I'll skip the upload for showing just that. The original purpose for keeping the video was to show the exact moment I figured out what was going on with the "disappearing dogs", but well... that was already covered so again, I'll skip uploading a "now meaningless" video. I have way too much content to get through as it is.
After completing the four maps, I headed home and updated the map.
Here's roughly the path I took when first venturing into this region.
It's not exact, especially in the parts still not shown, but it's approximate. I headed East from Rubyville across the ocean and landed near a Birch forest, which eventually brought me to windswept hills. Those brought me to the spot where I travel onto the explored part of this map, and when I found ocean, I didn't want to go any further East since I was planning on having it as a 6 x 9 region and didn't went to end up too far towards an edge (which I did anyway in the end).
From there, the first two Yellow circled spots are the villages I mentioned.
The third is the cliff side area.
The fourth is the woodland mansion.
The Orange circle at the end of the path is the would-be settlement spot that is now the Southern portal.
The Red circle is where I did settle instead.
More of my original route will be seen in later updates, but that's, uh... still like three updates out. The next outing will be a column (1 x 4) above the Northwestern-most map. I expect a fair bit of it to be ocean, due to the Eastern edge on my main map being ocean in that spot.
Partially exposed ruined portals are quite uncommon for me (although not extremely rare; I think I've found six or seven across several different worlds) as they can only be found in very shallow parts of the ocean, which are usually small in area. It also seems like nearly every single underwater ruined portal comes with a gold block, while around half of the terrestrial ones don't. Perhaps related to how certain blocks in ruined portals can get replaced by air upon generation.
Frozen oceans are lovely to explore until you walk out from behind an iceberg and accidentally stumble upon a polar bear with a cub ... but yes, it seems to be one of the few biomes where the size of its defining feature (i.e. icebergs) is larger in size than its typical real-life counterpart. And in a good way.
The ominous bottle that illager captains drop is always a level from 1 to 5, with each level having an equal probability of dropping.
I don't mind the iceberg size, and I don't even mind the biome itself. It was more that the old "monotonous, repeated effort" feeling of exploring 1.7 through 1.17 terrain felt similar in this biome in particular. You're often repeatedly going between water and ice, and not enough of either, so you're alternating between either swimming and placing/breaking a boat, and running a lot. To be fair, I did just come off a 1.8 world, and I am completely mapping a world so this wouldn't be nearly as bad in natural conditions, but most other aspects of 1.18+ terrain generation avoid this feeling for me (so maybe it says a lot that it's really only this biome doesn't, and that it's still far better than forests in the other versions). It might also be because I'm finding a lot of snowy/ice regions, which is humorous given my desperate search for one in my prior world. Here, I'm having a bit of the opposite problem.
This entire region is now done. I'm just that far behind on updates. I've currently got 7 folders of screenshots. They are arranged by outing, but I think one outing may be split across two folders. Even then, all but one of the outings are much longer than usual so I might break some up. It takes a lot of time and effort to maintain these threads without falling behind or overdoing the updates, especially when you're playing a lot I guess.
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Curse PremiumYeah, something about the icy seas is off. I haven't put my mind to it to try to figure out what it is. Probably that the variation isn't fractal.
Oh, do I ever know about having too much stuff in the buffer! Sometimes I'd stop playing for a week or two to shrink it. Also (you may already do this) I found I should write up the episodes shortly after they're played or I start to forget what I did.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
Season 4: Episode 23
This update will cover a four map column to the North. This aligns with the current Eastern edge of my primary world map. it's ocean in that spot.
If you remember that wild terrain formation near a village a few updates back, just North of that is my starting point.
As I head North from there, I'm along a shore, so there is indeed ocean here as expected.
I pass what I believe is the spot I initially landed at when I traveled East from Rubyville. It was a birch forest. North of that was a dark oak forest, and beyond that was more birch forest.
"Dear 1.7+ terrain, this is how you do forest hills!"
A bit further South is a ruined portal.
I guess the horse armor is notable enough to point out? I still have less than a row of them despite how much I've explored, so they're probably rare enough outside dungeons (or at least not common in the surface structures I do tend to check).
The rest of the map is a lot of ocean, but an old growth taiga is on a peninsula in the Northwest. It is here that I find a pair of surprises...
I thought old growth taigas had the Black wolf? Apparently, there's technically two types of old growth taiga (pine and spruce), and each has a different type. That's interesting to know... but what's more important is I now have two new dogs!
To the East was a cave with a lush cave within that I got a picture of.
To the North, another shipwreck was found.
Not far from the last cave, I found an absolutely massive crater/sinkhole opening on the surface. Unfortunately, it was mostly just that and not a cave itself, but it was still neat to find and see.
The Eastern edge of the map brought a real shock; there was a jungle showing up! So it's getting warmer here. Could I expect a larger hot dry region though?
The final find on this second map was a ruined portal.
The next map was largely ocean (well, again), and it is here that some deja vu will begin.
This is along the Northeast of my world map... and when I was doing that point long ago, it was getting interesting here so I veered off the map a bit back then, so some of these might be familiar sights.
Here's a stony peaks mountain biome that transitions to a colder jagged peaks. This is that savanna biome to the east of the larger desert/badlands biome that's a few maps West from here. Next to it is a village.
North from that, and to begin the next map, was that cherry grove biome next to a second mountain, and you can just make out the illager outpost within it. Apparently, those can't spawn in cherry groves in Bedrock, but can in Java.
I can't remember the purpose of this next picture. "Pretty terrain" maybe? That's usually it half of the time.
North of that cherry grove was even more mountains, and larger and more majestic ones, too. Now we're getting to some good stuff!
The illager outpost, however, didn't have much good stuff. Well... it did. But at the point I'm at now, it's horns I don't have which are considered good stuff, and it lacked one of those. No horn blowing gloating for me this time, I guess.
Here's plains to the Northwest. I know an ocean is just a bit further North. Note the savanna seen just off the edge, as well as the same savanna in the Southwest. Keep the presence of those hot biomes in mind...
In another cherry grove here was a ruined portal.
One that I've apparently already looted! I'm guessing the cobblestone was because I had a full inventory. I took it back. Thanks, me from the past. It is just off the edge of the map and in an area I went into, so I guess it's no surprise I've checked it already.
It did still have a gold block so I took that.
Heading South brought me across more mountains.
And also a lot of caves/cave-like surface cuts or openings.
When I reached the Eastern edge near the ocean, I froze.
Terrain like this is why I'll never stop loving the changes of 1.18.
Finishing the map brought more passes along mountains, some of which had large caves in them!
Here's the "reverse view" from a few pictures back.
And the very end of the map had a real shock... a frozen/snowy region!? What!? What!? Like... WHAT!?
So, I have found yet another snowy and cold region, and the hunt for a larger hot dry region continues on. Granted, I didn't expect one anywhere near this area since one just ended nearby, but... still.
I headed back home and updated the map.
I have just under half the map completed (in real time, I'm completely done).
And now... I am about to do my second largest single outing, ever. My largest ever outing was 12 maps and this will be 10. I'm looking to get some of that cold region, and not the one I just found, out of the way. This would also be the last time I use that Southern portal (at least for mapping insofar this region goes).