I built an observatory to better look for mobs instead of just aimlessly wandering, apparently, the view is actually pretty, so I took some screenshots.
Towers, lookouts, and observatories unfortunately seemed to be of limited use to me since Minecraft has too low of a distance at which it retains entities. By time you see something and then get down to it, you'd probably have been better off just actively running around on the ground in that time. This remains a problem today, and perhaps I'd say it's more of a problem today because render distance norms are higher. I wish the game would add an option for this (if not just have it tied to simulation distance). I'll be readying a bow to fire at a pillager and it will just... disappear right in front of me. Maybe in beta versions these would have a little more use since you can't run through; I don't know.
But as a builder, even if they didn't serve much of a purpose, I'd often make some anyway, largely for the reason you discovered after the fact; they can have good views.
I built an observatory to better look for mobs instead of just aimlessly wandering, apparently, the view is actually pretty, so I took some screenshots.
Towers, lookouts, and observatories unfortunately seemed to be of limited use to me since Minecraft has too low of a distance at which it retains entities. By time you see something and then get down to it, you'd probably have been better off just actively running around on the ground in that time. This remains a problem today, and perhaps I'd say it's more of a problem today because render distance norms are higher. I wish the game would add an option for this (if not just have it tied to simulation distance). I'll be readying a bow to fire at a pillager and it will just... disappear right in front of me. Maybe in beta versions these would have a little more use since you can't run through; I don't know.
But as a builder, even if they didn't serve much of a purpose, I'd often make some anyway, largely for the reason you discovered after the fact; they can have good views.
5 more screenshots from my world, because I get to have an excuse to show off this world
note: world not actually made in 2010, I just like pretending the game version I'm playing with is the newest.
note 2: this time I'm adding the screenshots as attachments as I'm too lazy to embed the images again.