*NEWS*
Update 6/5/13
Word has come out that 1.7 may include biome changes. Stay tuned.
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The Adventure Update was supposed to give us more motivation to explore, but instead the motivation was taken away. Here's why:
Many of the features included in the 1.7.3 generator that brought the game to life were unexpectedly removed when 1.8 hit our clients. Due to this, monstrous amounts of variety are now non-existent in Minecraft. Most of the problems with the generator today are due to limitation. With that being said, every seed is now basically identical, meaning there is WAY too much predictiveness in the terrain:
LIMITED HEIGHT VARIATION
For instance, we can only find mountains in the Extreme Hills (EH) biome and the X-hills biomes (ForestHills, DesertHills, etc.) In the EH biome, height changes are forced, ALWAYS leaving us with a sloppy mess of turquoise spam reaching to the heavens. In the X-hills biomes, the same thing happens, except height changes hardly ever reach "mountain level."
So why is this bad? Although this brings us joyous mountains, they are never spread apart, or landlocked by flat land. Thus, if you find a mountain you are nearly 100% sure to find more and more. Also, when you see turquoise grass, you are 100% sure to find mountains. It's predictability at its greatest. This is bad because the pre-1.8 generator contained more height variation. You could literally find any type of landscape. Just look at the variety of landscapes you could find in pre-1.8 in comparison to current generation:
As you see from this picture, the only way to achieve max-height terrain is to visit the EH biome. No, X-hills will not allow you to do this. What we do know is that EH biomes and X-hills together give us a somewhat decent array of variation, but 1.7.3's array was a LOT bigger. Want proof?
In this image, not only is there an overhang and a thin rocky formation, but there is flat land isolating both of these. There is no way to represent full random height variation in one picture, but this may give you a hint as to what it may be. What else can we bring to the plate?
Beta 1.8+ babies may not know what this is. Here is a picture of the most popular seed before the terrain was ruined. Glacier was its name. Now, this isn't the best picture of the Glacier Mountains, but I will attempt to describe it. Imagine a seasonal forest with mountains sprawling across the whole biome. This may seem like the equivalent of today's ForestHills sub-biome but it is not! An area such as the Glacier Mountains was not something you would see every five minutes. It was found by seed-hunting -- another damaged factor due to the 1.8 terrain changes. Ladies and gentlefish, this seed may just describe what height variation is all about. You see, if you exited the area of the mountains, there'd be terrain nothing like it. You would see occasional hills and land easy to build on! And guess what? This all happened within biomes of the same name. There were no limitations nor restrictions.
Now before you start replying (and I urge you not until reading ALL of this post), let me show you what the 1.7.3 generator could do, even though people may think it wasn't possible.
The picture above IS Beta-1.7.3 terrain, not Release-1.3.2. Yes, flat land was possible. REMEMBER, we are not asking for the previous generator! We want the current one improved so that everyone is happy!!!!
FORCED ENDLESS CAVES
Another flaw of the current generator is the underground generation. There are simply too many caves, and this problem is existent in every world, just like our height variation problem. Often, I find myself bored in-game, because within the first five minutes of a newly created world, I'm already set for life because I found a cave that extends on and on. Literally, we can now find stacks of iron ore and enough diamond to last us half a year within the first hour of gameplay!
So why is this bad? It is understandable some people may like having extensive caves, as do I, but not all the time. Minecraft always needed more challenge, and this cave problem definitely worsens the issue. Back in pre-1.8, there were caves of varying sizes -- the same amount of variety that the mountains had. Now we are limited to seemingly endless tunnels and caverns. Don't you miss "conquering" a cave in less than 10 years? I know I do.
Don't believe me? Look at this:
You could say "that's just one area in one world." WRONG. Look at this:
Want more?
This is absurd. The people who enjoy extensive caves are sure happy, but the people who want caves of varying sizes should be enraged!
SLOPPY SAND BEACHES & ABSENCE OF GRAVEL BEACHES
Another problem with current terrain generation includes the formation of beaches and the absence of gravel beaches. Gravel beaches were an undeniably cool feature to pre-1.8 generation, and Mojang had no reason to remove them when the Adventure Update hit our clients. Remember the "404 Challenge?" Well now it's impossible to have anything merely resemble it (except for the extensive cave system, of course). Sandy beaches are now always sloppily generated, therefore lowering the rate of variety within every world.
Why is this bad? It is obvious that the removal of gravel beaches upsets many people, as it does to me. Sandy beaches on the other hand definitely need work. Take a look at this current beach:
..Well that was awkward. The generator seems to just replace random coasts with sand blocks. Face it, pre-1.8 had things like this as well, maybe not as common, but definitely existent. However, pre-1.8 also had good looking beaches! This is what we call VARIETY -- when things stop reappearing over and over again.
Ok, admitted, the picture above may be a little biased. Let's throw in a picture that an opposer gave to me:
This is someone's example of a perfect beach. You've got to be kidding me. First off, two things need to be pointed about before getting into the specifics.
1. This is set on the Large Biomes option. Good terrain should be available to those who play on the default setting!
2. This "beach" is adjacent to a jungle biome. Beaches next to jungle biomes tend to look a bit nicer in comparison to those that are adjacent to other biomes. Therefore, this picture is a little biased itself.
As said before, the main problem with today's beaches is that they are always going to have this form. Only one or two horizontal lines of sand are actually on sea-level. Again, we had crappy beaches and good beaches in 1.7.3 and this is good because of the variety it brought to the game. We all shouldn't be able to reach preffered terrain everywhere we go, right? That's the challenge and fun!
Take a look at this picture of a pre-1.8 beach:
Now that's what I call a good looking beach! Look how many consistent sand blocks are actually on sea-level. Compare that to the one or two lines of consistent sandy-coasts in current generation. Remember, pre-1.8 also had crappy beaches, which is a good thing because it distributed variety into every world.
Keep in mind, this thread is NOT about the existence of oceans, the "RPG" features, the existence of the new world generation features, biome size, random placement of biomes, and possibly more. We also do not endorse the return of past generators or a new world option.
If you want to discuss these said features, you are in the WRONG THREAD.
WHY MODS ARE NOT THE SOLUTION:
Quote fromMods are a temporary fix to a long-term problem. Most of the terrain altering mods out there do not even live up to the standards that are put forth in this thread. They all are attempts to bring back 1.7 map generation into the current terrain. If you're asking Isn't this what we want? No, and this means that you did not read the full thread. So please go back, re-read the thread, and then re-post.
What we want done to the terrain is have it tweaked to add more height variety per biome. We want the structures and everything that was added since 1.8 except for the flat, dull, boring land. Mods do not fix this as they create ugly jumbled up and chewed up land masses all over the place (Which those types of land masses can also be neat if harnessed and used correctly by mojang.)
Did not know that? Re-read the thread, and re-post.
So for those of you who keep coming on here advertising different mods that we can use: 45 people have mentioned the same thing before you: so do not bother as it will not silence us. We feel the current map generation needs to be altered to satisfy all of Mojangs player base not just 25% (and yes those numbers are accurate .. the poll for this change is at 75% yes and 25% no) Did not know that? Simple.. Re-read the thread, and then re-post.
Tell Mojang about this issue!
Jeb's Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/jeb_
Dinnerbone's Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/Dinnerbone
Mojang's mailing address (MOST EFFECTIVE CONTACT METHOD):
The Minecraft Team
Mojang AB
Maria Skolgata 83
118 53, Stockholm
Sweden
Maria Skolgata 83
118 53, Stockholm
Sweden
You must include The Minecraft Team, otherwise they will not get it.
Check out these related threads!
Quotes From Different Players:
Quote from
I'm a little confused that this isn't a bigger complaint: I mean, swamps look ugly, sure and there are a few bugs here and there, but BIOMES ARE ABSOLUTELY RUINED. Seriously, I can't even play anymore - I'm just so bored by the landscape. I like mountains with trees (regular, pines and birch) and snow. I can have either mountains OR snow OR trees. Awesome
Seeds are completely pointless now - all they do is determine your spawn point. Might as well just use one seed and ask at the start if you want to start in the biome with trees, the biome with mountains or the other biomes with nothing in them.
Has anyone tried tweeting jeb about this (I'm pretty sure Notch isn't working on Minecraft anymore)? To me, this is the single largest issue with Minecraft currently. Varied and crazy terrain was one of the greatest things about Minecraft pre-1.8. Now, Minecraft's terrain is more boring than in real life. Realism I could possibly stand (in a game with creepers and which originally became popular because of its crazy and interesting randomly generated terrain), but it simply isn't realistic to have no snow on any mountains, to have no trees (one tree per chunk doesn't count - I'm talking forests) anywhere where it snows, to have almost completely flat terrain everywhere except in one specific area which has huge mountains and nothing else.
Some have said it's this way because of NPC villages - if that's the case, I'd much rather have no NPCs at all if it will bring back an interesting world.
Please, can someone here who uses twitter contact jeb and link him to this thread or ask if he realises that Minecraft's terrain generation is horrible and boring now, and whether he intends to fix it? If Mojang think it's fine as it is and don't fix it, I honestly won't be playing anymore. Bring back variety and craziness or lose those of your customers who enjoyed (above ground) exploration, building in unique locations, searching for the best seed, admiring the views and even just doing other things in a world that didn't feel like a void.
Quote fromThe problem I have with it is: EVERY. WORLD. LOOKS. EXACTLY. THE. SAME.
Quote fromMoving mountains to a single biome was simply the worst idea in all of gaming history. And even those look bland.I want the extremely random worlds that made Minecraft be awesome!
Quote fromThe terrain is a lot LESS complex than it used to be. What made the old generator more complex is, that the
physical terrain overlapped with all biomes, so that we had a lot of combinations. The biomes now are very homogenic and are seperated from each other with surgical cuts. 1000 blocks of flat forrest *poof* 1200 blocks of flat desert *poof* 1000 blocks of treeless extreme mountains *poof* 1000 blocks of flat forrest. very complex...
Also the additon of ravines and rivers doesnt have anything to do with how the terrain and biomes are created. They are just superimposed over the landscape.
Quote fromThis more realistic terrain generation is incredibly bland. Once you see one biome, you have basically seen them all.
The old one was varied and the biome mixing created some nice landscapes. Also spawning on a beach made it feel like you washed up on the shores of a unknown land. I wouldn't mind some modifications to the underground how ever.
Quote fromThe sizes are perfect, but they need more variety in each one.
Quote fromI was gonna post a hate comment, but once i looked at the screenshots i realised you were right! I haven't seen any awesome looking mountain formations since 1.0.0! All i've been seeing is the same old plains, swamps, and pine forests!
Quote fromI used to be ok with there being some caves, but now the entire damned underground is swiss-cheesed with them... Now I hate them.
Perhaps the people who love the endless caves are playing the game in Peaceful or Creative mode. Caves are a whole different matter in Normal difficulty. They are constantly getting in the way of my mines and underground constructions.
I would rather have fewer but more epic caves or actual caverns then an endless ant farm of caves everywhere I dig..
Quote fromI kind of used to hate people who said the terrain was boring... but it is REALLY flat. I guess I have to agree now. While I'm in love with oceans and mushroomlands and jungles, there is not as much interesting stuff in the world. I really wish that jeb would put back in what notch took out: Mountain landforms.
By that I mean not a mountain biome, but allowing allowing mountains to spawn in any biome on their own. That was one reason that the 1.7.3 generator was so friggin amazing.
If Jeb made it so that mountains could spawn in the same sort of way as lakes, then things would get a lot better. Then, mountains would be spawning in forests, giving us back that good-ole' tree filled mountain range we all love. It could spawn in Praries, to allow villages to be at the top of the world. It could spawn in deserts, to give us back those sand falls. They could spawn in oceans, so you could find just a random huge mountain in the ocean, kind of like a survival island. Heck, they could even spawn in swamps. Allowing for some pretty cool crap to happen.
Also, Jeb needs to put back the gravel beaches. I loved the look of those, and they just made things look so good.
Quote fromI have been a heavy Minecraft player since Alpha 1.2.0_02 when I first started playing. It wasn't the mining or the monsters that urged me to play; it was the sense of adventure. Most of the time, when I make a new world, I don't plan on building, I spend most of the time exploring the unknown and seeing what Minecraft has to throw at me.
When the ability to use seeds came out in Beta 1.3, it was then that my sense of exploration really started to rise. So many words and letters to type, so many worlds, but so little time. I loved it, each world had it's own uniqueness to it. If you managed to find a very nice world, you knew that this world was yours and no one else had one like it (unless you shared the seed).
When 1.8 came out, it really hit me hard. There was little to no variety in the worlds anymore. Seeds (in my opinion) were then obsolete. What's the point of sharing seeds when every world looks the same.
Quote fromIt is a fact that the terrain has less variety in it than before.
Quote fromI don't know why, but there are way way way too many caves. I don't recall there being this many before 1.8. I like exploring caves, and it's cool to navigate the enormous mineshafts. But only to a certain point. After spending hours and hours in a seemingly endless cave system, it just gets boring and repetitive. The cave system that I've been in since I started this world 3 days ago is just way too big. I dug a staircase mine type thing for a bit, just to collect a few ores to get me started. Within about 5-10 minutes I found my self in a cave system. 3 days later, I'm still in the cave system. I've seen about 3 ravines, destroyed 2 cave spider spawners, gotten lost in 2 different abandoned mineshafts and maybe 20 different caverns. I have half a chest full of coal, and the other half is iron, gold and a few diamonds.IT NEVER ENDS.
Quote fromI love enchanting, I love the new biomes, I love all of the new features, and there isn't one I would ever want removed from the game. I miss the old world though. The new world isn't the same, it doesn't even compare. I'm sorry to all those people I insulted back when the adventure update went live. I'm sorry because I know why you were upset.
I wouldn't be against Mojang hiring a guy on full time to do nothing but work on the terrain, as long as it gets done.Quote from
Also, is the Bukkit team actually still part of Mojang? I thought they were hired on and since then I've heard very little out of the progress they are supposed to be making.
Here's a rundown of how I think they are splitting their efforts. I'm thinking Bukkit got there, wanted to finish working on the Mod API, opened up the core program and realize that it was just a bunch of empty classes that would require a ton more time than they figured. Then 1.4 was held back to compensate.
Meanwhile, Jeb and Dinnerbone get to work on RPG stuff because Dinnerbone really only knows how to work with entities and Jeb is really only good at picking up the slack that Notch created when he would have his brain-farts so infrequently since the beginning of 1.8pre.
Then Notch leaves after delivering terrain so uninspired that he forgot to add roses, snow, and mountains (Really!? How can some people think current gen is better than 1.7.3 when it didn't even launch with ROSES and SNOW!?), Jeb takes up the torch of the entire game, makes beaches and X-hills their own biomes because he has no idea what mess of cobwebs Notch put up, and here we are with vertical beaches, endless biomes of flat terrain, and mountains that are so forced that even their heights are the same...
And some people still think 1.8 and up is better than 1.7.3? The development process alone is horrible enough to be deal-breaker.
Quote from
Gah. I honestly can't stand the 1.3.2 terrain generation at all anymore. If I play singleplayer, it's always with my 1.7.3 .jar because it's just an eyesore to look at the current terrain generation. The terrain of 1.7.3 makes it seem like a whole new game. Honestly, I love jungles and swamps but I would trade it and NPC villages for the 1.7.3 terrain. That doesn't mean I want Jeb to just re-add 1.7.3 terrain and dump jungles and swamps, I just want him to improve it.
What happened to the savannahs? It bugs me so much to see a desert next to a jungle. I don't even know why they removed the temperature system. I miss the beaches and the gravel beaches that were everywhere. Beach houses were possible back then. If you wanted a proper beach house now, you'd have to have a tiny 2x2 house just to fit it in the beach. It also annoys me a lot when people tell me to use Large Biomes if I want better beaches. Why should I have to use Large Biomes to enjoy a feature that was once perfect? We don't need the 1.7.3 terrain generator back, we need the current one improved.Quote fromSweet gods...witches and bats over terrain? Exploring neat new places is what makes this game (for me)
this topic.
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It looks a lot better now. Thanks.
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New link for Optitick: https://mega.nz/#!ZB1DRQTB!xbBG9U3_q2BlXX6mKzANNKMzi-W2khrbOhqkU4E7PdU
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The links went down because Dropbox, in an incredible display of stupidity, disabled their public folder system, which killed hundreds of thousands (if not more) links across the internet. I've reuploaded the files to MEGA now.
I'm also releasing two new mods for Beta 1.7.3:
Enderman
Basically the same as the Beta 1.8 Enderman with some small tweaks. A quick rundown:
They are found in the overworld only, and are rarer to find than regular monsters.
They don't care about the player unless they're attacked or stared at. Sunlight makes them peaceful, like Spiders.
They won't get aggressive when stared at provided you're wearing a Pumpkin in the helmet slot.
They have a small chance to drop 1-2 Slimeballs on death and any block they were carrying will always drop on death.
They have a decent chance to pick up a block from the surrounding environment and move it somewhere else (Block list).
They always teleport when exposed to sunlight, weather and water until a suitable dry, dark spot is found.
The sounds should be automatically downloaded from Mojang's Amazon AWS server when you start the client. If you've disabled that for some reason, you'll need to add the sounds to your resources folder (not included).
This mod does not require ModLoader and as such, it changes many core classes to add the Enderman entity into the game. Compatibility with other mods is probably low. I simply ported Mojang's code and modified it to work in Beta 1.7.3. Your mileage may vary on whether or not this works in a modified jar.
Download (Client)
Winter Mode
Clamps temperature and humidity values below 50%, causing only Taiga and Tundra biomes to spawn. It is always snowing.
Old worlds will immediately begin to freeze over if they are loaded while this mod is active, so back up your saves.
Download (Client)
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Here are some mods I've made or otherwise recompiled from various sources around the net. These are for Beta 1.7.3 only (I have no interest modding other versions at the moment).
Ravines
With this mod, I backported ravine code from Beta 1.8.1 into Beta 1.7.3. They spawn just like in newer versions of Minecraft, on the surface or all the way down to lava level. There can even be multiple ravines running into eachother. I'm sure you're familiar with how they work at this point. If you use the 404 seed, you'll likely find one.
Download (Client)
This mod doesn't change any other terrain generation. Caves and dungeon spawns should be the same, except for the added ravines, of course.
Improved Terrain + Ravines
This mod does three things:
Firstly, it adds ravines to the underground cave systems, as seen in the above mod.
Secondly, it fixes several bugs/artifacts in the overworld terrain generator. Beaches and biome edges no longer get "cut off" in weird ways, and gravel areas have a proper surface layer. This thread goes into way more detail about it than I ever could.
Finally, it fixes a bug in cave generation where flat walls would spawn at chunk borders, effectively "cutting off" caves. In Beta 1.8, this was fixed, so I simply backported the fixed code to Beta 1.7.3. You can read more about this bug in [MC-7196]. Nether still has this bug because I'm too lazy to fix it there, and the Nether didn't have this fix in Beta 1.8 anyway.
Do not expect seeds to be 100% accurate with this mod installed. Cave entrances and tunnels may be altered and dungeon spawns completely different as a result. Some areas may be sandy instead of grassy, with slightly different height levels and block patterns. Fortunately, biome regions stay the same, as well as the location of cave systems (even though the tunnels may be different).
If you want to keep caves and dungeons the same, don't use sq.class from this mod.
Download (Client)
Pickaxe / Axe Fix
This mod makes pickaxes and axes effective on more blocks, like in newer versions of Minecraft.
Download (Client)
Axes are now effective on the following:
Pickaxes are now effective on the following:
Restored Minecart Boosters
In Beta 1.5 the Minecart booster glitch was severely nerfed, with Notch encouraging players to use Powered Rails instead. This mod simply restores the old glitch back to its full glory. Powered Rails can still be used if desired.
Download (Client)
Restored Water Lifts
Reverts "Fixed submerged boats rising very very fast" from Beta 1.6. Useful for builds/contraptions, getting to floating islands very quickly, etc.
Download (Client)
Old Fire Spread
Reverts "Severely nerfed fire so it spread slower, and doesn't spread infinitely" from Beta 1.6. Fires spread infinitely and at a much faster rate, just like Alpha / early Beta.
Download (Client)
Water Spring Propagation Fix
Corrects the spread of water source blocks (springs) so that the surface of water deeper than one block will fill in correctly. More details here.
Download (Client)
Left: Without the mod, water currents won't cooperate.
Right: With the mod, it's a lot easier to create artificial ponds and lakes.
Old Beta Texture Pack
A nostalgic texture pack I made that brings the old cobblestone and brick textures back, along with the purple "Mojang Specifications" logo.
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1.12 beds:
Download
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No this is a new world.
If you look closely when I'm standing in the water only IT is getting darker and not the block beneath it. There are no blocks being built above or inside the water (obviously) to make a shadow appear, but it isn't in the changelog so you could be right.
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What's going on? Why is the dark water spreading to the clean water?
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It will be tweaked, but not now.