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After having fun with it... I decided to do it more!

Here's yet another short-term hardcore world to revisit an older version in what may be or may not become a recurring thing until I get bored. This time, I'll be playing in version 1.8.9.

The details for this world are...

1. I'll be playing 1.8.9 of course (with OptiFine).

2. Since I was really only playing a single long term world in the early and mid 2010s, I never really started "new" worlds in later versions and stuck with them for long. In particular, I avoided updating to 1.7 and 1.8 when they were current and mostly leapfrogged them after, going to 1.7 after 1.8 had released, and skipping 1.8 entirely for 1.9. This will give me another chance to visit 1.8 from scratch and see how it is on a clean canvas without any prior world commitments. I'll get to see how many of the issues/bugs/behaviors I dealt with in my 1.6 world were (or weren't) dealt with a mere two versions later. And also, how many new ones may have been introduced...

3. Like last time, I'll also be playing on my older PC for two reasons. The first is to try and judge its behavior and performance as it would have been on hardware typical from its time (I complained a lot about 1.6 in this regard so fair is fair), but also because Minecraft always seems to take a decade to catch up to what are bare, basic expectations for PC games, and in this case, it didn't have proper fog rendering on non-nVidia hardware until 1.17. My current PC does not have nVidia video hardware but the old one does, so that's the second reason.

4. I thought of taking the opportunity of using one of 1.8's features, and that is custom world generation. I wasn't sure of performance implications, and I tested it a bit in a creative world and it seemed... iffy, though it was also at a fairly high render distance and while sprint flying a lot, so... I'm not sure how much of it was down to the custom world generation changes. The few settings I changed (trying to make things slightly more 1.18-esque if I could) were changed in the direction that would make fresh world generation more demanding, so... I mostly skipped the idea in case that was part of of the hitching I was seeing during... well, fresh chunk generation. So I'm mostly using vanilla terrain generation, although I did disable the tiny surface water lakes and lava lakes because those are a simple on or off toggle and I dislike those. I almost disabled mineshafts and ravines, but since caves might be more sparse in this version, I decided to leave them enabled. I went with a random seed, and as long as it didn't start me in a hot or cold climate, I'd stick with it. The first one landed me in a temperate spot, so I stuck with it. The seed is 2362772586960891031.

5. Other than my prior 1.6 world intending to be a retracing of my original steps, this world will follow the same short term goals my previous world did of establishing a settlement, caving, resource accumulation until I am satisfied, and eventually proceeding through the nether and end. The one addition in place of the dropped purpose of the 1.6 world, and perhaps the core purpose of this world, is that I will do some mapping and exploration in this world. In other words, it will be a smaller scope of what my 1.20 hardcore world is. This will allow me to give another look at how good or bad the terrain generation and climate system of 1.8 (well, 1.7) really was. Originally, I didn't like the worlds the game was generating after 1.7, and repetitiveness from the climate system seemed to be a big reason of why. However, As of 1.18, I've come to like the climate system and now I tend to dislike the really small biomes and random placement that 1.6 and older versions generated, so maybe I'll tolerate it this time around? Not so fast on the assumptions; the terrain generation as of 1.18 is a very different animal from that of 1.7 through 1.16 despite both sharing a climate system with large climate zones, so... I have a feeling I might not actually like it as much here. We'll see.

With that said... welcome (soon) to Madain Sari! Yes, I often repurposing world names names or location names from Final Fantasy games. So what!? No, there's nothing here that will be reminiscent of Madain Sari. I just chose it because... many other names were already used by me before (sometimes multiple times) so here's a different one.

Like last time, I'll add the first update a bit later to keep this first post cleaner and as an eventual table of contents, and to keep the first update in its own post.

Updates

Update 1: What is This Place!?

Update 2: Settling In

Update 3: Exploring New Lands!

Update 4: Upgrades!

Update 5: Eastward Expansion

Update 6: Southward Bound, the Incredible Journey!

Update 7: Warmer Pastures

Update 8: Pink Sheep! Pink Sheep Everywhere!?

Update 9: A (New) Place to Call Home

Update 10: Desiring Colder Climates... Where Are you!?

Update 11: Acquiring Friends

Update 12: It's Getting Hot Again!? (Time to Panic and Give Up on Colder Ambitions!?)

Update 13: Wrapping Up Explorations

Update 14: The End! (And Good Fluffy Riddance)

Update 1: What is This Place!?

I spawn in, and see that I'm in a temperate location, so I don't immediately discard the world.

The first rule of hardcore is "be aware of your surroundings the best you can", so I always look around after spawning in.

To my immediate left, this "mountain" overshadows me.



To the right is another raised bit of terrain, but it's smaller forest hills, and clearings seem to be both North and South.

After surveying the best I can with a limited render and thus entity view distance from the top of a tree on the side of the hill, I decide to head South, the direction I was facing when I first spawned in.

Nearly immediately, I find I am set for the first day. This will be a casual one, I guess?



My next step is to gather a small amount of stone and coal, and then gather food, preferably cows since that's among the best food and it will drop leather too.

The extreme hills provides exposed coal. Apparently it's actually 2024 and this is 1.18?



I briefly check further into the plains in the South where the sheep were, but then head to the ones in the North. There's a forest further North, but the plains wrap around the forest hills to the West, so I begin heading that way.

I subconsciously noticed it before, but while in my inventory, the reality set in; my skin works! (Also, I decided to call forth the seed at this point.) That excited me.



Further West was more extreme hills. A lot of them! I spend the next couple of days gathering what cows I came across while collecting more coal. My hope was that I might find some easy to access iron as well, but... I noticed I wasn't finding any.

A short search on the Wiki later gave me the answer why; iron doesn't generate above sea level at all prior to 1.18? What!? It's amazing how "recent" some of the changes in the game are, and yet how obviously bad and so far ago they seem to me. So, no, this isn't 1.18; it's 1.8. *tucks into ball and pouts*

So there would be no iron shortcut, but how are people having issues finding coal? Note the day counter; this is after two and a half days, and if you account for the stone, food, exploration, and other tidbits (avoiding a skeleton) that took up some of that time, it's not like I rushed or focused only on gathering coal, and yet I have many stacks and there's way more around.



"How are people struggling to find coal in later versions that put even more in mountains!?"

Okay, okay, maybe mountains aren't as common in 1.18 as extreme hills are in 1.8, and I'm finding a lot of extreme hills here in 1.8, but still. Plateaus are common in 1.18 and they also yield shallow caves with abundant, easy to access coal, and even iron too. I don't get how people struggle with this. Even if it takes you more than three days, it's not hard. I honestly believe more and more that people just want instant gratification (results) with decreasing effort. Anyway, moving along...

The extreme hills continue and I could do this all day, but I need to be mindful of my inventory. I instead head East past the extreme hills at spawn and eventually come across some wolves unexpectedly in a plains biome.



My happiness immediately turned to panic when I realized the issue I faced in 1.6 with them would still be an issue here in 1.8 (and this was the latest version for like a year and a half or two so not being fixed until 1.10 is unfortunate). I panicked and ran while crying that I might have doomed them, haha.

In even more extreme hills a bit North(ish) of spawn, I find the first of something that will become common.

I saw that the extreme hills ended further North (I'm heading West here), so I thought there was an ocean or low laying plains on the other side and I was seeing through a gap. It wasn't until something walked out that I asked...

"Why is a skeleton air walking!?"



My immediate thought was that this was a sign I was going to be dealing with some severe server side/mob lag in this version. It is 1.8 after all.

Yet that's not what's happening. At all. I realized what actually was happening, and then dealt with it. Here's another picture for the answer.



That's no gap at all; it's the wonderful occlusion culling of 1.8 at work. I have no idea when this was finally addressed. I only know that it was still an issue as of 1.10, and I believe by 1.16 it had been rectified. My time in 1.12 was too short to say, but if it was still an issue there, I'd guess 1.13 through 1.15 is where it was fixed.

Get ready to see this a lot. Like the lighting issues with 1.6, I'll eventually stop showing/pointing it out, but they will be constant despite that. I had noticed it twice already before this, but only on the edge of the screen or in other small places. It's when it happens centered or in a large area like this that it becomes worse.

The good news? The lighting issues are gone! Mostly... I did see a single instance of it in a creative world test and it was like when I saw it in 1.12; it only occurred on a tree overhanging a sharp altitude drop. I looked into it and the Wiki claims both 1.7 and 1.8 had further work put into reducing these, and so by 1.8 the Black spots were basically gone (the lighting is still far worse off compared to recent versions though). So it's one step forward (lighting Black spots), but one step backward (occlusion culling "errors").

Continuing West, I find something that makes me realize of something else I'll be disappointed with in 1.8.



I really like large oak trees, and seeing this reminded me that I was seeing none until now. That's because 1.7 removed them from forests. They only generate rarely as single trees in extreme hills. *tucks into ball and pouts again* So those bland, repetitive, monotonous feeling forests of the 1.7 and immediately following era? Yeah, the omission of these wonderful things really contributes to that. It's amazing how a single and uncommon thing can make a big difference.

From here, I head South and there's more forests and rivers, and then I spot a pretty large and open cave.

"There's iron!"



(I should also mention that I was seeing a lot of rabbits everywhere in this version!?)

Large caves, that are easily accessible, with a lot of safe areas from sky light? This is about as ideal as it gets. I decided to chance it, and it felt unusually like 1.18 and not at all like 1.6 because the caves sent nothing my way at all. I didn't venture into them... but still.

I found 15 iron without incident, and crafted armor and leggings as my first things. Armor takes priority in hardcore. A pickaxe will come after.

I started venturing back towards where I thought spawn was, and saw a daytime enderman who was quite upset.



I then found another cave with iron, and the lava further in made it feel safe to chance.



It again went without me meeting a single mob, despite a small corridor pictured under me that terminated quickly.

It was here that I started wondering how the real caving would go later; would caves be a lot smaller and end frequently and require me to search far and wide for more? While I like a cave system that ends eventually (1.6 and prior, and 1.18 and later, can feel overwhelming when they don't end), nothing stops you from moving on and finding another cave above ground even before finishing one in those versions. In 1.7 through 1.16 though, sometimes it seems like it goes too far the other way and you can't find any with natural exploration and it encourages branch mining even more. I'll probably be doing that for diamonds for sure.

I now had enough iron for a full set of armor. Just because it isn't instant to amass doesn't mean it's too hard! (And really that's a stretch since I got it somewhat quick if I only count the time I was actively looking for it instead of doing other things too).

I wanted to find my way back to spawn and got a bit displaced for a moment because being in a new world and especially with a short render distance slightly throws off where I think I am and makes it easier to misjudge my location, but after some continued searching I find it.



If you're wondering why I returned... yes, I plan on settling here. If I came across a plains near a warm zone along an ocean, that may have tempted me... but I don't want to be picky when I'll need to explore again later anyway. I almost never settle at spawn, and this one is pretty accommodating to my tastes, so I decided I'd do so in this world.

I dropped a pair of chests and cleared my inventory. Finally, because it was just about full. I noticed here that I can not shift click two chests next to one another and have them remain separate. They would always combine. Oh well.

While terraforming the terrain, I would head out to gather some things, like more iron for shovels, clay from rivers, etc. I was also delighted with something that I was disappointed in while playing 1.6, and that was the realization that the game had only two flowers back then! Not so this time!



I gathered a lot of these, and something I saw once while breaking tall grass occurred again. I thought I was seeing things, but no, a flash of a peony flower was showing up? I looked it up and apparently this was a well known bug that started with 1.8 and wasn't addressed until 1.12 or 1.13!? Wow. It's amazing how many bugs I'm finding in any given old version with routine play. I didn't notice nearly as much back then. How many will I notice in 1.18 when I revisit it in 2030!?

On another trip West-Southwest of spawn (now home), I spot a dark oak forest.



Here, the realization that the limited biome and block palette of 1.6 won't be restricting set in. I love building with dark oak, so having this near my spot of settlement was perfect.

I also had oak sapling planted near spawn, and not one, but two of them grew this!?



"Take that giant oak-less version!"

I don't know if I'll be able to accommodate them into my settlement in those spots or not. For now, I'll leave them, but if I have to remove them, I can still force grow them where I want.

Near an extreme hills between spawn and the dark oak forest is a risky ravine. Worse, it exposes an issue with 1.8 yet again.



Coincidentally, issues seem to come in batches. In the river nearby, I spotted a number of chickens in the water.



I saw the same in a river very nearby.



So, that issue I saw in 1.6 with mobs eventually making their way into oceans or water was also still present here? Worse, these ones seemed actually stuck and were not moving at all.

While searching for iron for more shovels, I spot a cave just next to the ravine. 1.8 strikes again!





Yeah, it is terrible with this version.

Something I noticed in this cave is that zombies seem like they might be strange? I mean, I've only encountered one so far so it's a sample size of one I'm working with here, but it appeared like it was lagging insofar as the internal server goes because if I hit one, it briefly paused mid-air and then when it landed, it was frozen for a moment before it began a new pathfinding routine. However, this occurred only with the zombie and a nearby creeper was moving fine as this was going on, so it came off not as internal server lag (and there were zero messages in the log of the server being unable to keep up besides when I first started the world) but rather it came off as something to do with zombies in particular maybe? Was this some poor temporary resolution to the laggy zombies of 1.6 or something?

I light the circular room up and gather some iron, and begin venturing down one cave until my sword breaks fighting another creeper.

"I'll return another day!"

I head home and do some more terraforming and, many broken shovels later, end up with this...



It's... coming along?

I want to raise the terrain more to the left, but I might do something with those two "waterfalls"...

This update proper ends here. Next update, I'll gather more resources to begin building shelter.

Here's some final quality of life and performance comments that I wanted to keep separate from the content itself. Feel free to skip the rest if you just want the gameplay updates.

First things first, 1.8 (or rather, Java itself) sometimes crashes when I go to launch it. It happened once and I thought it might be a one off, but then it happened again, so I think there's something to it. It's very infrequent so far and unless it occurs immediately at launch, then it doesn't happen at all, so it's a small issue but it never happened with 1.6 so I'm wondering if there's an issue with this version of Java, or if it's something else.

On the plus side, I'm ecstatic at the quality of life options I now have!

The controls are better! I can sprint with a simple button press instead of a double pressing forward and it awkwardly stopping and needing redone yet again because I grazed a wall (or sometimes randomly!?) and this is a huge quality of life improvement.



The sound also has better options!

Perhaps best of all (no exaggeration) is that anti-aliasing works via supersampling with OptiFine's render quality now! (This first becomes natively supported by OptiFine with 1.7.) Not even modern vanilla nor Sodium or Iris offer this! Why!? Why!? Yes, you can accomplish supersampling with other game versions via downscaling methods by using things like nVidia's DSR or AMD's VSR or even just the resolution slider in the game or various shaders, but the advantage of the way OptiFine does it is that it only internally renders the geometry higher and not the whole screen. Why is that so important? You don't end up with blurrier GUIs and a mouse cursor for one, but most importantly, when the whole screen is being simulated at twice the resolution, your mouse cursor is both smaller (and blurrier) and moves at half the rate... unless you increase mouse speed before and after game launch in Windows (the game has no option for it) which isn't ideal anyway. (And good luck multi-tasking.)

It's wild that it's 2024 and only OptiFine versions with built-in shader support (1.7 and later) supports supersampling like this!? (Or I'm mistaken, and if I am someone please tell me, but I haven't found another method that does it without the aforementioned drawbacks.)

Lastly, performance was... pretty good!? Yeah, no kidding. Keep in mind I'm playing on now ancient and slow hardware too (Core 2 Duo E8600, 8 GB of RAM, GeForce GT 1030). I mean, this is early impressions and all so maybe I'll discover more as I play more, but for now at least, I'm pleasantly surprised with how well it can perform.

I did a test world with a render distance of 16, customized terrain, and was sprint flying at times, and that was pretty rough. The server log had pretty frequent messages that it couldn't keep up, and there was periods of bad stutter... which wasn't just the CPU failing to cope with fresh chunk generation, but apparently also 2 GB of VRAM was being exhausted? That was mildly surprising to me.

With default terrain generation and a render distance scaled back to 10 (and a lower rate of traversal in survival), it could now handle it much, much better.

Over a session of a few hours, the game says I'm averaging 60 FPS and seems to indicate the internal server is doing well.





The garbage collections do incur stutters though. Not terribly (again, at these settings), and unless I'm looking for them, they typically don't register, but they are worse than before for sure. If anything, they feel worse precisely because the baseline gameplay is smoother than before. I don't need smooth FPS on like in 1.6 to rectify awkward frame pacing (but I have the option to try enabling it here to see if it helps further). I might try bumping the render distance up to 12 once I start exploring with maps, but that depends on how much worse it gets.

This is a typical experience while running and loading previously generated terrain. It can be worse than this (especially if new chunk generation is necessary), but this is typical.



It's good enough that I won't complain. Perfect? Goodness, no. I need the render distance lower than I'd like and it wasn't until later Java versions and garbage collectors (and faster CPUs) that this became less of an issue, but it's far more tolerable and smooth than I thought it'd be considering this is the "big, bad 1.8" of performance.

It's a mixed bag.

I think the biggest question to ask on how good or bad the impact of 1.8 was compared to the prior few versions is to ask if you're looking at just the vanilla game as it existed, or if you look at OptiFine or other theoretical fixes. This is because one of the biggest improvements 1.8 made to performance was by multi-threading the chunk rendering, and without that, prior versions are slow as a snail, but with it (OptiFine can add it), prior versions nearly matches what 1.8 achieves while having lowering hardware requirements. I think this explains why some of us had issues with 1.8 and others didn't. 1.8 brought a very real performance improvement, but it also brought higher requirements and garbage collection stutters, and if you were using OptiFine before (especially with multi-threaded chunk loading), then you already had the biggest improvement 1.8 brought. But I think it's unfair to say Mojang didn't improve their game here when they did. It did come as a mixed bag and how much you saw of the good parts of that bag depended on a number of variables. I was someone who used OptiFine with 1.6 and also played at higher render distances, so I missed the good 1.8 did and only saw the bad. And I'm not afraid to admit I was partially wrong about it all these years.

Of course, that doesn't mean the bad it did didn't exist either. Shame about the garbage collection stutters, shame about the render distance needing to be kept in check more than before to achieve good performance (but at the same time, higher render distances were a rather atypical scenario on previous versions without OptiFine and multi-threaded chunk rendering), and a bigger shame about the poor occlusion culling until they got it addressed.

Those extreme hills really do make for a scenic spawn point, although I will probably never be used to the absence of iron above sea level since that’s where I usually gather it in the early game. I’m also curious why you were against the idea of spawning in a hot or cold biome.

When you showed the picture of the skeleton immediately after the wolf encounter, I was half-expecting you to kill it for the bones and tame the wolves before they could despawn.

26 XP levels already! I'm assuming most of it is from the coal you mined?

Quote from Staricle»

I’m also curious why you were against the idea of spawning in a hot or cold biome.

Mostly because I hoped that a temperature biome would increase my chances of seeing more variety. The primary purpose of this world will be exploration.

Quote from Staricle»

When you showed the picture of the skeleton immediately after the wolf encounter, I was half-expecting you to kill it for the bones and tame the wolves before they could despawn.

The reason I didn't is because it only dropped one bone, and that is seldom going to successfully tame one, so I wanted to wait until I had more.

Quote from Zeno410»

I was still getting lighting issues in 1.12, so they are definitely not gone. They were mostly driven by large trees though, so you may not see too much in vanilla.

Oh-my-gopodness-you're-back!? Yay!

And, minor spoiler alert, but yeah, I do end up finding out and will point out in my upcoming update that the lighting issues aren't entirely gone.

For clarity, I'm familiar with the lighting behaviors the game had as of 1.12, but those are a bit different than the "massive splotches of hard edge Black spots on world generation" that were basically everywhere in 1.6 and earlier versions. It is those that I was referring to.

Quote from Zeno410»

I remain impressed with your ability to stomp around the world from the getgo in hardcore. I always work on a base first. Granted, part of this is that I've long been playing with food mods and I have to get a farm set up fairly quickly, and I can't just butcher a bunch of animals because of food variety requirements.

That's probably the difference.

I typically do set up shelter "first", but I do some minor resource collection (and location searching) so that my efforts can go straight into my permanent settlement. It allows me to bypass the crude, temporary settlement.

Once you have a bed, there's almost no risk as long as you stay out of caves.

Quote from Zeno410»

Did you get a bed? I assume so but you didn't mention it.

I did, and sorry if I neglected to mention it because yeah, I did presume it would be inferred. I basically saw sheep faster than ever in this world. I'd be hiding in the ground or in a wall somewhere at night if I didn't have a bed. In hardcore, I only stay out at night if I have enchanted diamond or better, and even then, I would only do if I had elytra to escape if need be, or a nearby shelter to retreat to if things got bad. Staying out and fighting at night in the beginning isn't an option for me.

So it's less that I stomp and more than I cower, haha. Success in hardcore is more about decision making rather than skill. If it needed skill, I'd probably be bad at it and wouldn't be playing it so often. Speaking of lack of skill... well, I won't spoil it and you'll see in my next update.

Update 2: Settling In

With a location chosen, the first update will see me attempt to establish a shelter (mostly for storage and the map room), and accompanying farms (for food). I also do some early game caving for any initial resource needs (read as, more iron tools that break fast). I tend to need to shift what I'm doing a lot, especially early in a world, so some things may be out of order.

I start with a bit of caving. I return to the cave I showed last update near the ravine.

Here's a look down it.

Flowing water is both beneficial and risky. It limits spawns, but impedes movement. With ones flowing downward like this, I'll often leave them and slowly progress with lighting as far as I can safely, and then when I feel like I need to block the water to safely progress further, I'll do so and follow behind it so I can beat the chance of as many spawns as possible.



Before doing that to go further ahead, I went down a branch (where it splits to the left). There's a further split that way, and I ran into a threatening situation that way.

This skeleton was the risk.



Just like in 1.6, they have rapid firing, and if you get stuck in water, you're as good as helpless.

I hadn't encountered any spiders so I didn't have a bow of my own yet. But I did run into a skeleton who dropped its bow, and since I collected gravel and farmed chickens in the early game, I was lucky enough to be able to fight back. If I didn't have the bow or arrows, the world would have ended here. It was close even with those things.



Further down the main cave, it would have dead ended pretty quickly, but it led to a ravine. I should note that I was running into a lot of caves only to find them terminating in short order. Yeah, I'm missing the caves of 1.6 and prior right about now, just like I thought I would.

I did find a dungeon with a zombie spawner in one near the surface.





Here's another example of what I said I'd see a lot of.







*sigh*

Home was coming along well at least.









Here is the storage room. Across the hall will be the nether portal room, and further down the hall will be the map room. An enchanting room, and room for storage room expansion if I need it, will be behind this one.

I was able to use slabs on the upper half of a block and not have the lighting below ruined!



I then added a farm for wheat and got some paths added. This would not be made into a village as I probably wouldn't go that far with this world.



I later added a pen for cows. It would interesting to see if they behave as the cows in 1.6 did and break through the walls, but maybe I won't find out as this pen is much larger. What I did notice so far is that they do get "stuck in the corner" still.



Here's the map room, and just like a series of disappointments I had while building in 1.6 after realizing limitation after limitation of the game in that version, here was where my first real disappointment with building in this version set in.

I built the map room, and then I created my first map and zoomed it out. For whatever reason, I could only zoom it out twice? I decided to look at the page for maps on the wiki to see if I could find out why, intending to check the history section. It was here that I noticed something under the section for changes of 1.13, and that was the ability to place item frames and maps on the floor.

"You mean you couldn't do that before!?"

My room was already set up for a map on the floor!



Oddly, I found I could now zoom out the map more? So what prevented it the first time I tried? I'll never know, I guess.

I filled in the far portion of the room, made it taller, and ended up with this.



And while making it taller, I ran into a situation where 1.8 does have a lighting issue with slabs in the upper half of blocks.



That's the corner of the portal room above this one. There's a light emitting block in the floor there. I worked around it by moving it one block over so it's not above this room.

I also added an enchanting room, but forgot to get a picture of it.

I now wanted to head to the nether for glowstone for the map room. Doing that in unecnahnted iron armor felt... risky, so I decided to try and do some caving for diamonds now.

While looking for caves (which did I mention before, were a pain because they end before even getting started!?), I came across the first example of the lighting issue that plagued 1.6.



These are the lighting issues that I thought should be very rare in 1.8, but this was about to be foreshadowing.

First of all, I gave up on caves. They are awful in this version. I hated the idea of branch mining early to get diamonds, but the primary purpose of this version isn't a drawn out caving progression, but rather exploration. So when a cave that went down near the lowest depths just terminated so fast, I started branch mining from there.

I came across an opening with lava, and...



"Wha...?"

Well that's unusual? Surely?

I kept going and came across the very end of a ravine, and...



"I trusted you and you lied to me!"

So it was clear at this point that while 1.8 did improve upon these lighting issues, it's mostly on the surface and they weren't yet entirely gone, especially when obstructed from sky light. If my suspicion is correct, then I should see this in the nether also.

I continued branch mining, and... I was beginning to think something was unusual. I had to return home for more pickaxes at one point, and then went through almost three of the four pickaxes I had started with (in addition to the two or three I went through on the first trip), and had found zero diamonds thus far?

I was beginning to think the fact that I had made "custom" world generation changes, even if that was only the removal of the lava and water lakes on the surface, may have caused some inadvertent changes with other world generation aspects, like ore generation. I hadn't touched ore generation. I was about to either start another world (with a different seed) to test this, or to just look up if there were issues of the sorts, and then I eventually find some.



I have no idea why they seemed so rare, but... simple bad luck with what is still a relatively low sample size?

I wanted to wait until I had fortune, especially after that luck, but I would need three diamonds for a diamond pickaxe and two more for the enchanting table first, so I just mined all six.

I also got additional obsidian for a nether portal, as that was one of the reasons I started mining.

It's time to go to the nether...

As I stepped through, my earlier guess was confirmed. The lighting here is pretty prone to being broken too.

I spawned in at a pretty low altitude.



Worse, I was on a small floating bit of land above a sea of lava!



The closest substantial land mass wasn't far, at least. It didn't make this any less terrifying, especially with the occasional ghast noise.





I gathered a bit of glowstone, and I wanted to keep looking for a nether fortress (not to attempt it yet), but I decided to put that off until I had better armor.

I noticed that in 1.6, I was seemingly dealing with a lot more ghasts than usual. It's probably not that they spawn less in later versions, but it did seem like I was finding them more often, almost to an annoying degree. That continued here. While fighting one, I got this the same way I always do... (And the same way I imagine most people do?)



...Without trying. I always just try and defeat it and it attacks at the last moment, earning it for me.

I headed back home and made further enchantment attempts. To my delight, enchantment attempts now cost only up to 3 levels, not 30!

By this point, I had enchanted about a half a dozen pickaxes, all iron. Two had merely Unbreaking III. Another three had Unbreaking III and Efficiency IV, as pictured here.



I also had another with Silk Touch but discarded it.

I also had enough glowstone for the map room.



I'm not sure how much mapping I'll end up doing, but as of now, the wall is set to accommodate a 10 x 6 map. I'll be doing maps of the same zoom level I am in my 1.20 world (3 out of 4).

For now, I decided I had enough food to my first mapping adventure, so that will be the next update.

Yeah, that was really unusual. I wasn't too thrilled about it since I doubt I'd use them, but I still took them. I would rather have name tags.

I never found them to be all that desirable, especially early on. When they released in 1.6, I only found myself using them on railways or on other established paths and bridges that I had already made. If it weren't for that, and in any other world, I never bother with them.

In natural terrain, forests and rivers are too much of a barrier for them. Plains aren't difficult to traverse, and extreme hills are a bit risky on a horse. I'd generally prefer to explore on foot at any rate.

I highly prioritize keeping my hunger full to the point that I am eating as soon as my hunger bar isn't full. I never let it run down and then eat multiple times because that brings no benefit but carries a lot of risk. Having a food supply, which you should have regardless of whether you occasionally travel by horse, can accomplish that, so whether the horse saves hunger isn't a factor in whether I'd use one.

What is a factor is how helpful it is for travel, and I simply don't find them helpful there. The trees/forests being overgrown bushes with canopies at ground level in this game instead of real trees, and the rivers, really just prevent them from being "general terrain traversal" options.

Speaking of hunger though, I'm not sure if I'm imagining it, but I seem to be having to eat a lot more in this version. I'm not sure if that's my mind playing tricks on me though. Looking at the Wiki, the only big changes to the hunger system were with 1.9 and 1.11, and none were between 1.6 and 1.8 so I don't know why it feels that way then. It's possible I'm noticing it a bit more because I may be running a bit more than I was in my 1.6 world (because the controls are a lot more accommodating).

Yeah, the 1.7 to 1.16 (1.17) terrain generation era is probably my least favorite. It's really a toss up on whether I dislike the terrain generation of this era or the release 1.0 through release 1.6 era worse. It's a mixed bag because there's things they both do better and worse than the other. With 1.7 through 1.16, I like that there now exists a climate system to give the world some structure instead of random biome placement from before (my hypothetical guess is that the biome count was simply too poor before 1.7 to allow for a structured system), but the scale/strictness of said climate system is also its big downfall. The extreme hills have changed and I'm again not sure which way I prefer it because the ones from 1.0 to 1.6 are better to build among, but they are just big hills, whereas the ones from 1.7 through 1.16 probably look nicer for exploration and have more stone to come across as mountains... but not the size or scale to back that up. And maybe I'm mistaken, but the height variety of 1.7 through 1.16 seems a lot better than the repetitive flatness of 1.0 through 1.6. I'm noticing more "hills" variants of forests, and that they seem more varied in altitude compared to before 1.7. The biome variety is of course a lot better after 1.7, but since the climate scale is so large and since it keeps the tiny biome size of the immediately prior versions... it ends up resulting in those incredibly repetitive worlds we all know this era for. On the other hand... it's not like 1.0 to 1.6 doesn't have repetitive worlds too. A few types of forests, plains, (extreme) hills, deserts, and snow on repeat. Let alone the massive oceans.

It may sound counterintuitive, but I think 1.18+ making the biomes larger makes the whole thing work so much better. I do think the ideal spot for the climate scale is still a bit dialed back from where it is, but it's a heck of a lot better than anything before in my mind. Of course, we finally got real terrain generation (that is, like beta 1.7 and earlier where biomes don't dictate that aspect) which helps.

In a way, what I'm seeing of 1.8 so far (key words, since I'm still early in exploration) really feels like a concept stepping stone of what we would eventually see with 1.18, but it was so unfortunate that the shortcomings of this era were so major and that this "stepping stone" terrain generation stuck around for nearly a decade.

All of the above is speaking of the surface. When it comes to the underground, the release 1.7 through 1.16 era is the worst by far.

The main reason I'm not building a village is because the purpose of this world is exploration, not so much building. These hardcore worlds are meant to be much shorter since I'm wanting to spend just enough time in them to experience what I'm after, and then move on. You missed it but I did a 1.6 world before this (and I might do other versions after this one) and I did make a village for that one, although it was barely large enough to count as one. Village mechanics barely changed here, so there's no reason to do it again.

The map size being 10 x 6 is a case of giving myself extra room in case I need it. I was originally going to go with a size like 7 x 5 or 8 x 6 but I know how monotonous this era of terrain generation can be, so I felt like that might not be enough (and it still might not be enough with the increases?).

Slight spoiler alert to an update I'll add later today where I do the first map, but there's been no village found so far. I sort of expected that as a possibility since structures didn't yet litter the world in this version. Despite that, I'm impressed in some regards with what I've seen so far from terrain generation (but also equally unimpressed in other regards).

Update 3: Exploring New Lands!

I was able to start this much earlier than expected, but the time to dig into the main reason for playing this version starts here, and that is ironically... exploring its terrain generation!? In a version with poor terrain!? Then again, I've ironically been getting fair enough performance, and this version is also supposed to be infamously bad at that, so... will we actually be surprised and see impressive terrain!? I'm... not counting on it being great overall, but maybe there will be some pleasant surprises by the end of the world?

For now, I want to map the spawn/home region.



Due to my starting location being just offset from a corner, I'll head North and get that, and then backtrack over that small bit and head South. The terrain North is just plains and the edge of a forest (which I've been sourcing wood from, haha), so there's nothing I'll show there.

South is also plains, and to the South of that, is some extreme hills.



I've seen this when running around a bit earlier, but I've never gone further than this, so further South from here is all new to me.

Something I should point out is that there is no offhand in 1.8, so this forces me to hold the map with both hands, so I can either look at the map or the terrain, but not both. I don't want to double the amount of pictures I take, so you won't always get good pictures of the map. Since I'll be showing the map at times (such as on the map wall), that will have to do. If I was playing a single version later, this wouldn't be the case, but I intentionally chose 1.8 for other reasons, so alas.

Before exploring new terrain, I also go ahead and raise my render distance a bit from 10 to 12 so I can somewhat show the terrain better. If new chunk generation causes too many stutters or performance issues, I'll dial it back, but I think a small increase should be fine enough. It does end up being fine (and based on this, I would guess I could probably live with it up to 16 for the sake of this world, but that might be bordering on worse performance than I normally like, so I'll settle with 12), but this causes a harmless issue shortly.

It looks like it will be extreme hills in the Southwest corner.





That second picture is where the issue showed up, but I didn't keep the pictures for it.

Right above my cursor was a missing portion of terrain.

"So what, the invisible terrain is a common issue with this version?" you ask?

Yes, it is, but that wasn't the particular issue I was having. The issue I was having seems to be a bug with either 1.8 itself or OptiFine specifically when the render distance is changed during play. A row of chunks, seemingly on the edge of the old or new (not sure which) render distance edge, will visually not show up, no matter how close you get. Even if you walk into it! I tried reloading the chunks and even that didn't resolve it. Reloading the world does.

Anyway, moving on...





I said in the previous post what I'd say here. I both like but dislike the extreme hills in this version compared to 1.6 and earlier. They're not as good looking to build in, but they're probably more exciting for exploring/seeing. They seem like the old extreme hills with the grass replaced at the mid-to-top portions, and with more varying and wild terrain, almost like they were trying to incorporate beta-like overhangs. I was never a fan of this style of terrain, personally, hence I'm mixed on these ones versus the 1.6 and earlier ones.

Not pictured because I discarded the picture as I'll come across it soon and show it then, but I spotted another dark oak forest to the East. The known one I saw before is to the West and off this map.

Further North, it shifts to forest, and then back to another extreme hills, the same one right by my home, so I get a picture of it from up there.



It is at this time that I realize I didn't bring bones with me, so while I'm near home, I run back and get them.

North from that is is similar to the Northwest part of the map I didn't show, which is just plains and forest on the edge. Heading back South, I come across the aforementioned dark oak forest.



Unlike more recent versions, like 1.18 and later, this will be more dangerous. That's because mobs can spawn in lighter levels, and I'm also lightly armored here. I am pretty shy of entering into dense spots unless I really need to.

So... I'll be impersonating my best treetop self wherever I can!



Before long, I hear the unmistakable noise of a skeleton burning, only for it to stop. I soon find the source of the noise.



Yeah, that's why I stick to the treetops!

Heading back further North, it shifts to a safer taiga biome. I then see the remains of a sheep on the ground, and while I'll normally be thinking something the lines of...

"Aw, poor sheep."

...When I see that, this time it was more...

"Yay, doggies!"



I quickly tame the both of them, and nearby, there's two more! The first was successfully tamed with only two bones, and the final one took just one! With how many bones I still have, I could tame even more if I found them! And yes, I probably would if I didn't have to go out of my way to do so.



It seems they adopt Orange-colored collars by default in this version, which is actually fitting because that was the color Vivi's collar was, so these will unofficially be Vivi III through VI until/if I get name tags.

Along the North edge for the third time, there's even more extreme hills. That makes three spots of them on one map.







I noticed a few times before this, but especially here that there's some pretty high (for this time period, anyway) non-mountain terrain. These forest hills seem more common and higher than before.



I make my way through more of the dark oak forest, and then more of the taiga. It is here that I see not one, but two interesting things.

The first is this iron. I presume it's multiple veins, but it was still interesting to see. I probably should have gathered it, but I didn't.



The second, however, was even more impressive to me.





That's quite a large cave!? (Again, for this version at least.) This may have been the largest cave I've ever seen between 1.7 and 1.16.

Note the abundance of visible resources; I've said before that this is likely why resources were scaled back in 1.18 with much larger caves.

There was even more wolves, but I didn't bother climbing in to get them.

The remaining notable thing of this outing is back in the Northeast in the extreme hills.



Watching over the terrain with one of the dogs. It's a shame that even to this day, the game's form of "waterfalls" is a random single source water block in the side of mountains. The game desperately needs rivers to be possible at non-sea level altitudes (even if it's only a few other fixed altitudes for simplicity instead of truly random altitudes). There's so much more still that terrain generation could become.





With the first map done, I head home with my new friends. I notice one of them has some awkward ligating behavior going on, and it starts only when it enters the house. I guess I have a charcoal colored wolf before different wolf variants were added?



Here's the first finished map.



I may or may not adjust its location as I explore more.

Something I'll mention here is that I may not make updates for each map like I was in my 1.20 world. That was the scope of that world, and while exploration is also the goal of this world too, I'm not looking to do it to quite the same pace and scope. It all depends on how notable the things I find are. Don't worry, I'll definitely be showing much more exploration results, but I won't be expanding to the same depth of "a map for an update, give or take". Not unless world generation ends up being far less monotonous than I imagine.

That's quite a large cave!? (Again, for this version at least.) This may have been the largest cave I've ever seen between 1.7 and 1.16.

1.6.4:
  1: 579 11 647 (length:  98, width: 17, volume: 10707)
  2: 520  9 694 (length: 112, width: 15, volume:  9202)
  3: 473 11 851 (length:  94, width: 18, volume:  7314)
  4: 131 47  52 (length: 102, width: 14, volume:  7029)
  5:  -4 23 881 (length: 103, width: 13, volume:  6909)
  6: 793  8 780 (length: 109, width: 14, volume:  6473)
  7: 871 48 368 (length:  92, width: 13, volume:  5961)
  8: 941  2 188 (length: 104, width: 13, volume:  5704)
  9: 798 12 775 (length:  85, width: 13, volume:  5539)
 10: 355  8 900 (length:  86, width: 19, volume:  5419)

1.7-1.12:
  1: 776 57 884 (length:  93, width: 19, volume: 11922)
  2: 359  7 763 (length: 111, width: 16, volume: 10088)
  3: 725  4  37 (length: 107, width: 16, volume:  9208)
  4: -54 33 370 (length:  98, width: 16, volume:  8591)
  5: 307 91 773 (length:  92, width: 16, volume:  8477)
  6: 863 67 683 (length:  91, width: 13, volume:  5360)
  7: 320  0 956 (length: 111, width: 11, volume:  5318)
  8: 924 27 762 (length: 109, width: 13, volume:  5291)
  9: 433  2 107 (length:  86, width: 13, volume:  5215)
 10: 395 17 659 (length:  94, width: 12, volume:  5064)

1.6.4:



1.7-1.12; the cave you show is in the lower-right (colored green as it is exposed to the surface, these maps only go up to sea level). There is also a large complex of caves and mineshafts near the center (probably large enough for many to declare that there were no underground changes in 1.7 since they don't do much caving):

Locations of largest caves by volume:
  1. 600 28  40 (type: 4, length: 484, width: 49, volume: 627322)
  2.  88 36 552 (type: 3, length: 448, width: 35, volume: 273283)
  3. 600 24 808 (type: 2, length: 397, width: 45, volume: 224006)
  4. 856 28 552 (type: 2, length: 419, width: 53, volume: 194288)
  5. -40 25 424 (type: 2, length: 398, width: 37, volume: 147409)
  6. 344 35 296 (type: 2, length: 299, width: 35, volume: 121759)
  7. 216 31 168 (type: 2, length: 289, width: 31, volume:  75176)
  8. 344 32  40 (type: 2, length: 310, width: 28, volume:  63671)
  9. 424 33  88 (type: 1, length: 336, width: 19, volume:  37553)
 10.  72 27 648 (type: 1, length: 205, width: 24, volume:  34913)
 11. 440 16 296 (type: 1, length: 320, width: 14, volume:  23164)
 12. 696 19 424 (type: 1, length: 173, width: 21, volume:  21191)
 13. 856 39  24 (type: 1, length: 336, width: 15, volume:  20101)
 14. 801 24 420 (type: 0, length: 143, width: 26, volume:  17853)
 15. 904 33 536 (type: 1, length: 172, width: 16, volume:  15109)
 16. 344 31 152 (type: 1, length: 238, width: 12, volume:  14876)
 17. 264 32 440 (type: 1, length: 169, width: 16, volume:  14738)
 18. -17 13 383 (type: 0, length: 114, width: 22, volume:  14262)
 19. 648 33 904 (type: 1, length: 122, width: 19, volume:  14246)
 20. 376 32 104 (type: 1, length: 211, width: 14, volume:  13156)
 21. 184 21 648 (type: 1, length: 197, width: 13, volume:  12448)
 22. 776 35 696 (type: 1, length: 333, width: 10, volume:  12315)
 23. -56 34 648 (type: 1, length: 173, width: 13, volume:  12027)
 24. -35 11 420 (type: 0, length: 108, width: 16, volume:  11218)
 25. 786 24 523 (type: 0, length: 138, width: 18, volume:  10720)
 26. 715 52 491 (type: 0, length: 144, width: 19, volume:  10688)

Update 4: Upgrades!

This is a bit of a mixed update, but I mostly focusing on upgrading me equipment and settlement, as well as finishing the "local" map (meaning, having a 2 x 2 map of my surrounding spawn/settlement).

To start with... I see that, yes, cows still make their way through fences, so that was apparently not yet fixed between 1.6 and 1.8.



I farm some cows to get some more food.

I then shift to a very lengthy search for diamonds.

I had attempted to get fortune on a pickaxe, and I finally got it. It was Fortune II, but that would be good enough.

It is here that I once again thought ore generation may be impacted by my custom world generation options. I was finding far fewer than expected.

My branch mine starts just around a coordinate of 0 in one axis. I had found only one vein of diamonds in several hundred blocks, and upon continuing that branch, I had to go over 1,000 to find the next!?

I'll be honest; I was almost convinced something was wrong until I finally found them. I was searching for any information at all about possible ore generation impacts with custom world generation options in 1.8 but found nothing to confirm this, yet I was finding seemingly none. Either there was some unknown issue with it in limited circumstances, or I was really just having bad luck.

It turns out I was just having bad luck, as things would quickly get much better.

At over 1,000 blocks, I finally found more.





Okay, but I already knew they could exist. I found some before. I felt something was making them rarer than they should be. Would my luck change if I continued? It turns out that it would...







It was at this point that I ran into another threatening situation. While mining that last bit of diamond out, lava had hit me and resulted in this loss of health.



Those smarter than me would realize a water bucket would have prevented this. For whatever reason, I never use them. I'm too slow to switch to them normally (such as when falling), and my approach is that I should be avoiding needing to do that anyway, or else I already failed leading up to that point. Later in a world, things like enchantments (such as protection and feather falling) will render this less of a threat so it eventually doesn't matter as much, but here, I still had unenchanted iron armor. That is why I was mining for diamonds, after all.

And after my inventory was full, I had 33 of them, which was more than enough to make a set of armor.



So I head home and do so, and then use some levels on enchanting.

Going off of memory, the enchantments were as follows...

The helmet was Projectile Protection IV and Unbreaking III. (I got this twice in a row for it...)

The armor was Protection IV, Thorns II, and Unbreaking III.

The leggings were Unbreaking III and Protection III.

The boots were Fire Proection III or IV (or Blast Protection III or IV, I forget), Depth Strider III and Unbreaking III.

In general... nothing was as desired. The armor was fine if it didn't have thorns, and the leggings were close.

I noticed Unbreaking III showed up a lot here, whereas in 1.6, it never did at all. I used the same enchanting calculator for both versions, but it only goes back as far as 1.8, so I presume there's differences between those two versions. Besides that difference, the numbers it gave me for 1.8 seemed to mostly be correct for 1.6.

It was time to get even more diamonds and levels (the latter had me visiting the nether to mine quartz) to try and improve upon this.

This time, I started a branch heading the exact opposite direction. And in nearly the same 1,000 blocks distance, I found many more diamonds. I was also finding slightly more caves.

















(I'm not sure why I show the coordinates for diamonds every time I find more, but it started as a habit for the first ones I found in the world for 1.6 and I've been continuing doing so since.)

While these pictures are linear, the progress wasn't. I was constantly crafting/enchanting more equipment, and going to the nether for levels, in between.

Eventually, I got pretty desirable equipment.

The helmet now is Unbreaking III, Protection IV, and Respiration III.

The armor and leggings now are Unbreaking III and Protection IV.

The boots now are Unbreaking III, Blast Protection IV, Feather Falling IV, and Depth Strider III.

This basically mirrors what I had in 1.6 (3x Protection IV, 1x Blast Protection IV, and Feather Falling IV) but I now had Unbreaking III everywhere. Respiration III and Depth Strider III are somewhat luxuries and not essential, but very welcome at the same time. The latter will be nice for exploration since swimming is not yet a thing.

Basically, besides Aqua Affinity missing on the helmet, this is about as perfect as it gets here.

I would want more diamonds eventually for repairs or and tools, but I took a break to do the second map. This will be the one to the West of the one I have done.

To the Southeast was the original dark oak forest I found in this world. Just off the edge of the map, I spotted my first village in this world.



It looks rather small (a well, a church, a blacksmith, and a house?) from here, and I see trees beyond it in at least one dimension. That's either an unusually small plains clearing, or a small peninsula of one (maybe it extends to the West/right?) where a village somehow managed to generate.

Since it was off the map, I didn't go to it yet. I didn't need to, for on the same map, I found another one.



This was just beyond where I had explored blindly in the early days, so I just missed it. The joys of a low render distance (the mountain may have obstructed it anyway?).

I got some carrots and potatoes here, but I didn't check the Blacksmith as I didn't even notice it at the time. It's close enough that I can run there and do that next time I play.

Here's the updated map.



I then shifted to progress at home. With my shovel in need of replacement, and with my refusal to go back to iron (I had a lot of land to terraform), I went diamond mining again.



I also wanted it with efficiency if possible, so back into the nether I went for levels, and I finally found a nether fortress! I only had to randomly tunnel mine to new areas to find it, but... I did. I won't be going to it now, but I know where it is now.



I got a shovel with Unbreaking III and Efficiency IV, and I also enchanted my prior axe, but only got Unbreaking III on it for now.

Here's what I got done with me settlement.

Remember the plans I mentioned for the waterfall right near spawn? Here it is.



I don't have plans to use horses, but I did make a small stable and tamed a couple of them, putting some of those five saddles I found to use.



In one corner, near the cow pen, I also made this retaining wall. I'm also having fun with the additional flower options.



I did the same in the corner with the horse stables. I manually terraformed the terrain lower on this side to be able to do it, and the need for the diamonds for a shovel was mostly for this and the body of water beneath the waterfall.



Here's the view of my settlement from the plains to the South.



Here are the plains behind my settlement, and the area of forest (different coloration) that I was clearing for oak wood.



Here's an overview of the entire settlement from the mountain next to it.



Other than potential small details, I have no plans for the settlement beyond this. It might not be a village, but my settlements tend to be less of "bases" that other players make, and more of "villages" (with or without the additional houses and villagers) in that they are a home, farms, and other things.

The sugarcane is sort of temporary, so I may move that to a dedicated area next to the existing farms. I need it for paper to craft maps, and I need a lot of it.

I might also make a archway (of Stone with leaves growing around it?) over the front entrance path.

Besides potential detail things like that, it's done. I won't be making any more major structures or things. The lone exception is that I might make a tower overlooking it at the top of the mountain (left of where the above picture is), but that will technically be outside the settlement.

This picture gives a good look at how extreme the forest hills can be as of 1.7.



While they may be tall, they have a problem; they are scaled up in the Y dimension (relative to before 1.7) but not so much in the X or Y dimensions, and this is basically what I feel is one of the big problems with this era of terrain generation, as I'll elaborate on below.

With myself (equipment) and settlement progressed to a finished enough state (and I guess this is fast progress, given this only the fourth update?), I would explore two more maps to have the initial 2 x 2 map around spawn done.

As before, there won't be much to show.

I do find the first ocean and within it, the first water monument. Surprisingly, I went right over it and didn't get the elder guardian debuff, and the guardians themselves were distracted attacking squids.



I also find this dark oak forest island (or peninsula) that reminded me more of 1.18+ terrain generation. I don't know if dark oak forests are slightly warm or cool (or neither)? I know there are many to the South, and this was the first I found to the North.



This map was a lot of ocean, but a lot of land to break it up too.



The second map was more monotonous though, somewhat like the first two.



Here's the initial 2 x 2 map I'll be working from.



I don't want to constantly talk about it on repeat, since I will eventually want to cover it at the end, and I'm still early in exploration anyway, yet... there's some bad trends emerging. It's definitely already feeling monotonous despite only doing four maps, and extreme hills in particular seem very common? I liked the first one I found, but after seeing how common they are, I'm liking them a lot less.

I'm unsure what direction I'll go first, but it might be South.

Quote from Zeno410»

On the ground I prefer 1.7 era generation slightly to 1.6 era; to me the increased biome variety and near-elimination of problematic junction outweighs the wimpy oceans and absurd search distances - slightly.

So, this might be unexpected (?), but I might disagree. I'm still not sure which era of terrain generation I dislike the most between those two. While I personally think 1.7 through 1.16 (1.17) appeals to some particular things I'm after, such as a better structured world in regards to biome arrangement and more biomes, it still fails in some key ways. So much that I think it might be the slightly worse of the two.

When 1.7 released, we all loved the new biomes, but the common consensus was that worlds felt repetitive. The common consensus for that was that the climate regions were too large. For the most part, that was that; that was what many of us largely accepted as the biggest problem of that era of terrain generation. That was also my opinion at the time!

However, fast forward to 1.18, and I'm in love with just about everything with world generation. Yet, the the climate regions are also still about as large as before, give or take? So... what gives!?

While exploring this 1.8 world, and having also explored both 1.0 through 1.6 and 1.18+ worlds in recent memory, some ideas have been coming to mind. Here's what I think are the biggest problems with the worlds of 1.7 through 1.16 (1.17)...

1. There was a lot of new biomes added with 1.7 (truly a lot!), but still not as many as today.

2. They didn't have the climate zones as defined as well as they do today. Deserts and badlands mixed in for hot regions, with jungles and savannas commonly accompanying them nearby (including all their sub-variants), feels a lot better than alternating deserts and savannas for hot regions accompanied by badlands and especially jungles that were... really rare (why!?), for example. And that's using hot regions, which you could argue are the most lacking in current Minecraft since they only have two major biomes and both of them are ones the community feels needs additional improvements.

The above could possible be lumped together as "a poorly defined climate system" and "not enough biome variety for the region size".

There's two more things though, and I think these are only more apparent with the retrospect of what 1.18 did.

3. Uncoupling terrain generation from biomes! This is often the thing that the community said made 1.0 and later so bad in terrain generation.

4. Maybe most importantly... the biomes are too small! At least for the climate zone sizes being used here. The large region sizes alone isn't the problem; it's the mismatch of the biome size and climate size. This is what is sticking out to me most while playing in 1.8 compared to 1.18+. I've explored a mere 4 maps, and yet it already feels way more repetitive than 1.18+ would in thrice (or more!) as many maps. When the biomes alternate so often, and to the same few, this is what makes it feel so repetitive.

Nothing exists in a vacuum. Things exist relative to the surrounding things they exist alongside. None of those things alone are what did it, but it was the particular combination it had of them, and I think the last one was perhaps the important one that many of us missed because we were too preoccupied with the "climate zone" boogeyman.

With 1.0 to 1.6, the biomes were smaller. Render distances were lower (this is important!).

With 1.18 and on, the biomes are generally much larger. Render distances are also much higher. The climate system is more apparent and pretty large in scale still.

Like one or dislike the other, they are both at least rather consistent in what they do. That is, they know what they want to be. Contrast that to 1.7 through 1.16 (1.17), which feels like a mismatched mix of terrain generation that doesn't know what it's trying to be. And that is its problem.

I imagine when they were planning to add so many biomes at once, they realized structuring the world would be an improvement, hence the climate system. And I agree with that in concept... but the execution of it all was rather poor.

Also, extreme hills are overly common and weird and what's up with that (!?) and I think they suffer the same thing. Perhaps the terrain was probably trying to appeal too much to the complaints of the things that were lost after beta 1.7 like "more overhangs and wild terrain" and I'm sorry but these look weird and while I think they may have worked great if they were rare and a separate type (like how 1.18+ does it), being so common and completely replacing the 1.6 and earlier type of extreme hills just made it feel like we lost a nicer biome.

Quote from Zeno410»

I saw stuff like that but only in modded worlds. I always blamed mods - but by 1.8 I was only playing modded, so maybe not?

Probably something else. I'm consistently enough identified this as showing up only when the render distance changes during play, and only that once in the spot that is at the edge of the old or new terrain distance edge. It might not always happen during that set of conditions, but it only shows up during them. I'm not sure of it's an issue with 1.8 itself or OptiFine, but it's one or the other.

Quote from Zeno410»

It's a shame, but as a terrain modder I can say it is a *hard* problem. The one thing that wouldn't be *that* hard would be more plausible water mechanics, so a flowing one-block stream doesn't turn into a flood. There are mods that do this, and you can at least have water flowing off a mountain more reasonably.

Oh, yeah, let me clarify something here.

When I say it's "a shame", I don't mean that criticize the results from those who have put in work on this. I'm not someone who knows what is or isn't easy or hard, and I've been around PCs and tech enough to know that sometimes, the things that seem easy are actually hard, or vice versa.

I appreciate the work people do, and at the end of the day, I paid for the game once and it's gotten years (over a decade) of free content updates, most of which were improvements. My room or desire to complain is nearly zero. I only speak as a player voicing their opinion on what might be better.

So by "it's a shame", I mean only that such a single and "simple" change to terrain generation would elevate it to being much, much better.

Quote from TheMasterCaver»

The only change to cave generation in 1.7 was to the size/density of cave systems and overall distribution of such, while the individual caves (tunnels/rooms) remained exactly the same as they had since Beta 1.8 added a chance of tunnels reaching up to 27 blocks wide instead of 3-9, and not really that much rarer overall (77% as common). That cave would be large even by 1.6.4 standards...

Well, I had a feeling it was large especially for this era of terrain generation since I seldomly seen caves this large before 1.8, especially in 1.7 through 1.16 (1.17). I found some in 1.6 (one even in my recent world?), but even then it wasn't common.