Skybox - Why can't the skybox turn grey when it rains?
That stood out to me right away. I frequently look up into the sky during rain/snow, and see no clouds. Such a simple thing, and it looks very peculiar with rain falling from a cloudless sky.
Weather - The hard rain is awesome, but to frequent. The same for snow. Why can't there be gentle versions of these? Rainstorms should be generated with a random magnitude, and then should transition in and out. It really shouldn't be that hard to do.
...
I know we don't have seasons, but shouldn't the Taiga have at least some snow? Maybe snow on the ground, but only a few, gentle snow storms.
Variation in the intensity of precipitation would be nice.
As I described earlier, if the type of precipitation were separated from the type of biome, some nice variety would be added to the environment, and remove the current "Snow" biome as redundant (it's nothing more than Plains with snow on it). You would see some Taiga with snow, and some without, just as any other type of biome.
Biome Size - After looking at []99-random-seeds-all-mapped-out[], I see that we don't have any large deserts. Why not? Oceans tend to be too big.
I've read up on what similardilemma did to generate those images, and there are quite a few deserts depicted with dimensions over 1km in his maps. Those images represent an area of (4096m)^2 centered on (0,0). Separating biomes by their color, only two types are larger than the rest in the current 1.9 engine, Snow and Ocean. Few of the oceans are larger than 2km, and out of the 153 examples, only 4 were larger than 4km.
Creeper - ?
Cave Spider - ?
Enderman - ?
Silverfish - ?
Skeleton - 5 xp
Slime (various sizes) - ?
Spider - 5 xp
Zombie - 5 xp
Nether
Blaze - 10 xp
Ghast - ?
Magma Cube (various sizes) - ?
Zombie Pigman - 5 xp
Passive Mobs
Baby Animals - 0 xp
Chicken - 1 to 2 xp
Cow - 1 to 2 xp
Mooshroom - ?
Pig - ?
Sheep - 1 to 2 xp
Squid - ?
Testificate - ? (likely still 0)
Wolf (hostile, friendly) - ?
I've been very curious about this myself. What is your sample size?
there are 3 main deferences.
1 survivability, you can live in the cool areas in 1.7, you have everything you need, trees, water, sand everything.
in 1.8 you don't have any of that its just mountains, a barren wasteland, you can't have it, you can't live there for verry long and once a creeper comes, you're scr*wed.
2 Uniqueness, in 1.8 there are mountain chains, vast breath-taking landscapes. but
in 1.7 you have one thing that blows your mind. amazing beyond imagination, and everything around it, is special enough that you wouldn't want to sacrifice anything for any-one because of the uniqueness of everything. in 1.8 you wouldn't sacrifice anything because you need it.
3 realism. 1.8 might be realistic, but 1.7 is grand. the amount of island floating is beyond reach.
1.7 takes an unlimited universe and puts it to it fullest extent. 1.8 take an unlimited universe and makes it as much as our own limited universe allows it to.
I would suspect that one of the World Type options will be rich in flying mountains, considering the great popularity of that type of landscape.
There are some great examples of the variation within a single biome type in those 1.7 seeds that we just don't have any more. That lack of variation creates the kind of resource scarcity you mention. I like the general idea of restricting some plants or animals to certain biomes, but earthen materials being rigidly restricted so is more bothersome.
As mentioned in in another thread recently, the world building code is likely based on fractals or similar pseudo-random equations, with the outcomes restricted within specified ranges for each biome. The 1.7 vs. 1.9 worlds show us that the range of outcomes allowed now for topography and vegetative density are too tightly restricted.
Creative is fine but getting a mob spawner would make the game wayyyyy to easy, farming mob drops wouldnt even be a challenge anymore.
I wasn't aware that it was remotely challenging now.
Requiring an exceptionally high level enchant, and perhaps causing a significant hit to durability upon the tool are the only hurdles needed for acquiring mob spawners. They are not difficult to find or build farms around now. The only thing accomplished by not allowing us to move them is to make the process less convenient. Making a this aspect of the game annoyingly inconvenient only makes it less fun, not more challenging.
I remember that photo of the above ground ruins that jeb posted...What happened to those? Would of pretty sweet if you ask me. Finding ancient ruins and temples, unrelated to strongholds.
I agree that the strongholds should be observable from the surface, not require you to dig 20 meters into the ground(or under the ocean) before there is any sign of its presence. Eyes of Ender are helpful, but should not be required in order to locate a stronghold.
You guys either have some serious issues or there's a new trend on forums.
OP has a point, the world is way more gray/brown and depressive than it was.
I would say that the color tones of the foliage is much more realistic that it used to be. The old color scheme was ridiculously vibrant with "radioactive" green trees and grass, back when there was only one kind of tree.
As for a literal interpretation of the complaint, grey is found in bare Stone and Mushroom biome, brown foliage is only found in Desert. You are trying to say that your world is dominated by bare stone, Mushroom, and Desert? I would think that highly unlikely.
It sounds like a "problem" solved with a texture pack.
There are a lot of responses in favor of larger (over a greater distance) transitions between biomes. I took some time to measure out patches of biome that are isolated to get an idea of just how much space is covered by a single patch of biome. The numbers vary between approximately 96 and 384 chunks, with an average around 200 chunks each time the code says "put some X biome here." I was generally rounding down when estimating, and if we make it a square that would give us approx 14*14 chunks. I suspect the number would actually be 16*16 chunks (256) if the borders were clear, and rounding was unnecessary.
If we interpret that observed difference to say our biomes are divided something like this:
With a core area of 196 chunks with a 1 chunk outer layer of transition.
Do people feel that if the core area remained the same (biome size is generally approved of) with double the distance over which the transition was made that would be better? Or is the problem in the way in which the transition is made that is unappealing? Would the same amount of distance with a more spattered, and less gradient dependant transition be better?
If the current transition is measured like this:
And the current transition is reliant entirely on color gradient for transition like this:
If we change the system to bring back some of the spattering effect that the old world generator did almost exclusively for making transitions, and combine that with the gradient transitions we have now, we could measure the transition like this:
And view the gradient of the spattered transition like this:
Thus preserving the size of the biomes, and the distance over which the transition is made, but giving a better blending of foliage type and a gradient within an observable border area.
I don't find Hardcore mode to be too much of a challenge. I've played a HC world for quite some time now (I hope I'm not getting too attached to it) where I've spent nights in a forest slaying mobs. I've also explored numerous and expansive caves and abandoned mine shafts, taken down cave spider spawners, and the like. All without reaching half health, ever. A little patience combined with preparation and awareness will defeat any difficulty added by Hardcore.
Yeah, I died a couple times when I started using Hardcore mode, but it was just because I was complacent. Now I have a couple HC worlds I use almost exclusively (a SkyBlock and an island).
Well, its not a code freeze, it's a feature freeze. A feature freeze seems like an OK idea, but their choice of features to squeeze in before the freeze and going gold seems poor.
The world building code should have had a much higher priority. It has been entirely reasonable for people to expect their beta worlds to be backwards incompatible as large changes were made to the terrain generator, but after the game is out of beta that kind of change to the terrain generating code is going to be much more coldly welcomed.
The biomes just need to be fixed, or reverted to a previous version.. I'm amazed that more people aren't complaining about the monotonous terrain generation. The world is so bland and predictable now.
There are quite a few threads on the topics of biomes and the new secondary terrain features. Unfortunately they tend to be less about constructive feedback than simply stating the idea that "it was better before" without giving details on how or why.
I'm talking about the lightning system, actually ... and btw, I liked how the grass looked like in pre-1.8 versions; I'd call it dark green though. Radioactive green was how it looked like before the addition of biomes.
I was referring to older versions with the radioactive reference as well, when there was only one kind of tree. I think the foliage color is a big part of what you're seeing though. It's a matter of contrast. With such bright foliage previously, the shadows were not so appearant.
Let me add all those ponds in desert biomes. I mean, it doesn't make any sense at all that there are little ponds everywhere in deserts. If they supposed to be oases, they should have some vegetation around them at least ...
Patches of clay in place of most of those ponds could be a good alternative. It would show where water collects in times of plenty, without having the water. If Cactus and Dead Bushes were localized to them the desert would look more logical and less random.
...
still, i dont have the time to go mapping many seeds looking around. how common is this exactly? ...
A little under 4%.
Large oceans like the one you experienced are uncommon. Here are 153 examples. Out of that set of 153 I only see three that would be similar to yours, and perhaps another three if more map were explored. So, in this modest sample, about 3.9%.
In the list of 147 seeds I explored and took notes on (one of the world types I was specifically looking for were potential "survival islands"), I found 5 that had noteworthy oceans. Thats ~3.4% in that set.
0
That stood out to me right away. I frequently look up into the sky during rain/snow, and see no clouds. Such a simple thing, and it looks very peculiar with rain falling from a cloudless sky.
Variation in the intensity of precipitation would be nice.
As I described earlier, if the type of precipitation were separated from the type of biome, some nice variety would be added to the environment, and remove the current "Snow" biome as redundant (it's nothing more than Plains with snow on it). You would see some Taiga with snow, and some without, just as any other type of biome.
I've read up on what similardilemma did to generate those images, and there are quite a few deserts depicted with dimensions over 1km in his maps. Those images represent an area of (4096m)^2 centered on (0,0). Separating biomes by their color, only two types are larger than the rest in the current 1.9 engine, Snow and Ocean. Few of the oceans are larger than 2km, and out of the 153 examples, only 4 were larger than 4km.
0
I've been very curious about this myself. What is your sample size?
0
I :laugh.gif: every time I see that thread title.
0
That room has been around for a long time. It's not common, but I've seen them for ages, it has nothing to do with 1.9.
0
I would suspect that one of the World Type options will be rich in flying mountains, considering the great popularity of that type of landscape.
There are some great examples of the variation within a single biome type in those 1.7 seeds that we just don't have any more. That lack of variation creates the kind of resource scarcity you mention. I like the general idea of restricting some plants or animals to certain biomes, but earthen materials being rigidly restricted so is more bothersome.
As mentioned in in another thread recently, the world building code is likely based on fractals or similar pseudo-random equations, with the outcomes restricted within specified ranges for each biome. The 1.7 vs. 1.9 worlds show us that the range of outcomes allowed now for topography and vegetative density are too tightly restricted.
0
I wasn't aware that it was remotely challenging now.
Requiring an exceptionally high level enchant, and perhaps causing a significant hit to durability upon the tool are the only hurdles needed for acquiring mob spawners. They are not difficult to find or build farms around now. The only thing accomplished by not allowing us to move them is to make the process less convenient. Making a this aspect of the game annoyingly inconvenient only makes it less fun, not more challenging.
0
I agree that the strongholds should be observable from the surface, not require you to dig 20 meters into the ground(or under the ocean) before there is any sign of its presence. Eyes of Ender are helpful, but should not be required in order to locate a stronghold.
0
I will assume that you updated from 1.# to 1.9, since you put this in the 1.9 forum. Changing version causes it to acquire a random seed, afaik.
2
I would say that the color tones of the foliage is much more realistic that it used to be. The old color scheme was ridiculously vibrant with "radioactive" green trees and grass, back when there was only one kind of tree.
As for a literal interpretation of the complaint, grey is found in bare Stone and Mushroom biome, brown foliage is only found in Desert. You are trying to say that your world is dominated by bare stone, Mushroom, and Desert? I would think that highly unlikely.
It sounds like a "problem" solved with a texture pack.
0
If we interpret that observed difference to say our biomes are divided something like this:
With a core area of 196 chunks with a 1 chunk outer layer of transition.
Do people feel that if the core area remained the same (biome size is generally approved of) with double the distance over which the transition was made that would be better? Or is the problem in the way in which the transition is made that is unappealing? Would the same amount of distance with a more spattered, and less gradient dependant transition be better?
If the current transition is measured like this:
And the current transition is reliant entirely on color gradient for transition like this:
If we change the system to bring back some of the spattering effect that the old world generator did almost exclusively for making transitions, and combine that with the gradient transitions we have now, we could measure the transition like this:
And view the gradient of the spattered transition like this:
Thus preserving the size of the biomes, and the distance over which the transition is made, but giving a better blending of foliage type and a gradient within an observable border area.
0
Yeah, I died a couple times when I started using Hardcore mode, but it was just because I was complacent. Now I have a couple HC worlds I use almost exclusively (a SkyBlock and an island).
0
Well, its not a code freeze, it's a feature freeze. A feature freeze seems like an OK idea, but their choice of features to squeeze in before the freeze and going gold seems poor.
The world building code should have had a much higher priority. It has been entirely reasonable for people to expect their beta worlds to be backwards incompatible as large changes were made to the terrain generator, but after the game is out of beta that kind of change to the terrain generating code is going to be much more coldly welcomed.
0
There are quite a few threads on the topics of biomes and the new secondary terrain features. Unfortunately they tend to be less about constructive feedback than simply stating the idea that "it was better before" without giving details on how or why.
0
I was referring to older versions with the radioactive reference as well, when there was only one kind of tree. I think the foliage color is a big part of what you're seeing though. It's a matter of contrast. With such bright foliage previously, the shadows were not so appearant.
Patches of clay in place of most of those ponds could be a good alternative. It would show where water collects in times of plenty, without having the water. If Cactus and Dead Bushes were localized to them the desert would look more logical and less random.
0
A little under 4%.
Large oceans like the one you experienced are uncommon. Here are 153 examples. Out of that set of 153 I only see three that would be similar to yours, and perhaps another three if more map were explored. So, in this modest sample, about 3.9%.
In the list of 147 seeds I explored and took notes on (one of the world types I was specifically looking for were potential "survival islands"), I found 5 that had noteworthy oceans. Thats ~3.4% in that set.