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My own take on a "mega taiga" biome, prior to adding the "vanilla" variants (which coexist with my own version) included adding gigantic trees with 3x3 trunks, which generate along with normal sized trees and spruce "bushes" at ground level:

There's also a "mixed forest" variant with all types of large trees:



Both variants can be seen here (mixed on the left, normal on the right):



There is also "mega tree plains", similar to how plains have the occasional single tree:

On each of three consecutive days I found a witch hut, desert temple, and a village, and if you think they count as a structure, a desert well, with the desert temple, well, and village close enough to be seen in the same view, which may be the closest in time that I've found 3-4 structures in this world; these are also the 7th desert temple and 16th village I've found, and the first village I found in 6 months of playing (two play periods since October 2021) and first desert temple since January 2018, with around 400 sessions elapsed since then:

This is the first witch hut that was generated after I'd made witches spawned in huts persistent but I never saw one since it left it at some point while I was exploring nearby:



While they were relatively close together I did not see the village until later since this temple was technically past the edge of which I'd explored (underground) and I only made a special trip to check it out, not checking further into the desert until the next day (the fact I said this shows just restrictive I am at what I explore outside of caving):



The desert temple had a couple diamonds and 24 gold, quite a lot from what I can recall finding (this may not be so unusual for newer versions; since 1.9 loot is much less random and there can be more stacks per chest; I've seen people post screenshots of loot chests with all 27 slots filled; of course, I put all the loot into a single chest to take a screenshot. I also took the bones for bonemeal, I never take saddles once I've collected several):



I also later ran into the basement of the desert temple exposed in a cave:



Deserts are actually the "flattest" biomes in 1.6.4, flatter than Plains, yet as seen here they can still have a fair amount of elevation changes (I had to dig out or build staircases to several of the houses; not visible in this view is a field which had a 8-10 block drop to the surface below on one side). Another major difference from newer versions (or TMCW) is that there are no surface cave openings since caves can only cut through stone, dirt, and grass (I did semi-fix this fro this world by adding mycelium to the list; in TMCW I actually have no list, just anything goes, except for water, which has a separate check so they do not run right into it, and bedrock at y=0, by limiting the minimum y-coordinate to 1):



A view (taken at max FOV showing the village (left) and desert temple (right):



If you look closely you can also see a desert well near the center, shown zoomed-in here (similar to witch huts I never kept track of how many I've found in this world, which would be similar to other structures given a 1/1000 chance per chunk, compared to 1/1024 for structures):

This is an analysis of the area (the image was slightly cropped to fit the mineshafts):

Total air volume is 355819 blocks (8.24975%)

Number of cave systems: 20
Initial number of caves: 145; largest cave system: 29 (3744 736)
Total number of caves: 194; largest cave system: 35 (3744 736)
Additional circular room caves: 49
Number of small caves: 189; average width is 6.02
Number of large caves: 5; average width is 13.41; max width: 15.65 (3929 23 856)
Number of circular rooms: 32; average width is 10.29
Additional caves per circular room: 1.53
Average caves per chunk: 0.59876543 (324 chunks)

Locations of largest caves by volume:
1: 3766 47 878 (length: 111, width: 15, volume: 8892) *includes above y=62
2: 3929 23 856 (length:   92, width: 16, volume: 7501)
3: 3905 35 932 (length:   95, width: 12, volume: 3144)
4: 3776 10 922 (length: 105, width: 13, volume: 2989)

Locations of largest ravines by volume:
1: 3758 45 731 (length: 103, width: 14, depth: 42, volume: 23234)
2: 3895 44 892 (length:   93, width: 13, depth: 42, volume: 19219)
3: 3919 20 969 (length:   90, width:   7, depth: 22, volume:   6493)
4: 3738 52 731 (length: 104, width:   6, depth: 21, volume:   6085)
5: 3720 32 843 (length:   97, width:   6, depth: 19, volume:   4450)
6: 3837 41 774 (length: 103, width:   4, depth: 15, volume:   3213)

Locations of abandoned mineshafts by corridor length:
1. 3784 28 840 (size: 202, length: 1945)
2. 3864 17 904 (size: 164, length: 1540)
3. 3832 15 856 (size: 139, length: 1360)
4. 3816 43 792 (size: 115, length: 1120)
5. 3736 25 824 (size: 102, length: 1070)

Totals: size: 722, length: 7035, approx 1640 rails

There were also two fairly large caves, which can be seen on the map (the first one is the largest green area towards the lower-left, which cuts it off above y=62, while the volume accounts for the part above as it was still underground, and the second is near the right-center):





Also, this is what happens to caves in deserts prior to 1.8, which allowed them to cut through more blocks (contrary to widespread belief caves can only cut through a small list of blocks, and even if any block is allowed, as in TMCW, they can't cut through non-terrain features, such as strongholds, which simply don't replace air blocks):

This was taken from near the northernmost point I'd reached from the land to the south; I had not originally explored south from the north because there were no caves leading from that area (and hundreds of blocks to the west, I made my way southwards close to the western edge of the map, not sure about east since I stopped due to ocean. It is common to have such "barriers" extending for hundreds of blocks, even a thousand or more, where there is no direct path between two interconnected regions):



This was taken from were I took a screenshot of the witch hut:



This is the furthest east I've explored at any point so far (I might have gone further east from the northern landmass if I'd found caves in that area):



This was taken from where I took a screenshot of the desert temple, which is near the northern edge of the same desert my latest base is in, 576 blocks south from the northern edge of the map, and from the looks of it, the village as well (this would be several "biome units" merged into one larger biome, common when there are only 7 biomes to choose from):

Bottles o' enchanting used to be far cheaper - in 1.6.4 (before 1.8) you can buy 4 for a single emerald and I've actually done this in order to get a bit of extra XP for enchanting items (at 1 level each though, I just enchant the items I sue to repair my gear with level 1 enchantments, same for the iron pickaxes I collect from mineshaft chests, combining them to higher levels, and use to dig rail tunnels/secondary bases). Whether that was too cheap (apparently Mojang must have thought so), in 1.8 they increased their cost to 3-11 emeralds each - or up to 44 times more expensive - no doubt the biggest nerf to any tradable item (that can't be obtained in any other manner, or removed outright). Even now they are shown to cost 3 emeralds each - still up to 12 times more expensive (or 4 after maxing out their discount).

Also, many of the things you list have been rendered "useless" due to newer additions - ocelots? In 1.6.4 you tame them in order to get cats, something which I haven't changed (except for black cats spawning in witch huts) and cats themselves can keep creepers away (if only useful sat down in front of your base, not taken along with you, certainly not with my playstyle - I remember taking a wolf along with me while caving and needless to say it didn't go well).

I also see nothing wrong with more "wildlife" in general - polar bears? I added them, as well as brown and black bears (texture/size change) just for more variety, and even a bit of a danger (brown bears spawn in any forest while black bears spawn in an "autumnal forest" biome based on this suggestion, and are always hostile until fed meat, which makes them neutral). Likewise, glow squid add ambience to caves and I find their drops to be very useful - ever make a map wall and noticed the inconsistent lighting, unless you place them on glowstone? I did use to do that but the wall must be 2 blocks thick if you don't want the other side to be exposed - glow ink sacs solve that (yes, some say you could have just used glowstone dust) - I even added the ability to make paintings glow for similar reasons.

Also, what about Giants? Or you you not even think about them? I don't blame you since they haven't naturally spawned since InDev (if ever, the Wiki doesn't seem to say), but 1.8 made them literally useless by removing their AI (which had various issues, mainly because they still used a much older AI system, which I replaced with the more modern one, enabling them to properly pathfind and all that, with their damage reduced to 10 as 50 damage is too overpowered, considering even creepers deal less and can only do so once. I also recently figured out why their attack reach/attacking them was so inconsistent and fixed it (they could only damage you from feet level, likewise, you could only consistently hit them at their feet, depending on where they were within a chunk section. A similar bug causes tiny magma cubes to only damage your from above, which I fixed so touching their bounding box deals damage, making them a lot more dangerous, partly offset by limiting their attack rate to once per second like other mobs).

Also, one of the most insane things about Giants? Look at the history - in 1.14 they gave them a proper AI over multiple snapshots - only to throw it all away - and that is why it takes them so long to release new updates.

Or killer rabbits - a complete waste of code if you ask me - much like an early 1.8 snapshot I made them naturally spawn, and much more often (1/256 chance, though I only encountered one in over a year of playing on a world, more certainty spawned though, as they are small and don't render/aren't easily recognizable from far away).

Why did they remove endermites spawning when an enderman teleported, also present for a short time in 1.8 snapshots? I even made them naturally spawn, like any other mob, as well as "cave" spiders and silverfish, all below sea level (the last can only hide in blocks if attacked by a player, or spawned from infested stone or a spawner). Even husks and strays - why only on the surface? I'd almost never actually encounter them while playing - I made them spawn everywhere as 50% of zombies/skeletons, and I added various colors of husks for more biomes (red for red sand/mesa biomes, white for "quartz desert" and "volcanic wasteland" biomes, pink for the Nether, which also has pink "nethermites").

All of this, along with much more varied world generation on a local scale, and the fun features of slimes splitting into magma cubes when they die in lava, "cave spider jockeys", and baby skeletons/strays (just as you might think - baby zombie + skeleton), and armored/weaponed mobs being much more common (in part because I removed regional "difficulty", a useless feature which only made the game easier, with 1.8 making it even worse, at least in 1.6 you can still get armored mobs, etc on the first day even on Easy, which never happens since 1.8, and takes a while on other difficulties) greatly increases the variety of mobs I regularly encounter, even if there aren't as many as in the latest versions (the main reason I haven't added more is because of the models and AI; when I added fish I even created my own model from scratch instead of trying to decipher Mojang's model system).

Beetroot also still has to be more useful than poisonous potatoes, otherwise, much like gold items in chests or enchantments like Bane of Arthropods they probably just added them to nerf villages (i.e. less of the more desirable crops, even before wheat was the most common). They can also be used as food for breeding pigs or villagers (though arguably potatoes are the most ideal for both, and when cooked make a decent player food, with Fortune giving over 4x the yield per crop; they (slightly) nerfed the hunger value of baked potatoes in 1.8 since they were so broken, but even beetroot soup (6x beetroot, requires 7 slots for a stack) is barely any better).

Quote from Princess_Garnet»

As for the mobs, I don't think beaches have a lower spawn chance. People used to think it was the other way around with deserts back in the day (that spawns were higher) but it was simply because you could see more. Well, it might be true that they also spawn a bit more from less obstructions than in, say, forests.

Prior to 1.8 there was an interesting quirk in how mobs spawned - the initial location chosen as the center of a pack had to be an air block - nothing else - or the pack completely fails (individual spawn attempts could occur in any non-colliding transparent block), and this actually resulted in no mobs spawning whatsoever in e.g. a Superflat world with a layer of snow at the top:

1.8 14w25a Most restrictions on the pack location are removed. Formerly it had to be an air block, now any non-opaque block suffices.

https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Spawn#History

Also, I've noticed something interesting - there seem to be hardly any mobs on the surface at night in Ice Plains biomes:

https://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-java-edition/survival-mode/297957-what-have-you-done-recently?comment=4711

Quote from Staricle»

I created another survival world, after the first one (Survival 1.0) somehow deleted itself. I had no idea where it went, but oh well.

This is most likely due to "level.dat" becoming corrupt for any number of reasons and can easily be fixed by copying and renaming "level,dat_old" to "level.dat"; failing that, create a new world with the same settings (seed, etc) and copy its level.dat file over (you will lose your inventory - just cheat your items back in, and you'll be back at the world spawn point, again, /tp to wherever you were). It used to be that you could just create a new world with the same name but they recently changed it so the game will not reuse an existing directory (as a workaround to fix MC-315 Chunks do not delete properly remaining in a newly created world if the same world name is reused - but this was a useful way to recover a "deleted" world. The root cause of this specific issue (when legitimately deleting a world) was caused by the client attempting to delete the files while the internal server was still saving, with the true fix being to force the client to wait for it to fully shut down).

Also, this should never just happen; I've only ever experienced this after the game crashed, and interestingly, not recently in any of my modded versions (where I've had plenty of crashes during development, otherwise, the game should never crash, ever. I've seen people who think it is normal, even for modded versions - unacceptable, which is why I debug things so thoroughly - not a single crash in over a year of playing on a heavily modded version), likely due to changes to make sure the game shuts down as cleanly as possible; various other forms of world corruption have been linked to the fact that in singleplayer the game runs an internal server on its own thread and the client does not properly shut it down. Another major cause of corrupted worlds is likely user error due to not shutting the game down properly - never, ever click the close window button (X) when in a world, and to be safe, at all - always use "save and quit to title", then "quit game".

The same is also likely true of MC-161823 Chunks can occasionally be misplaced upon loading a world - most of the cases are (hopefully) caused by user error or faulty hardware, else there is a serious issue with how the game saves, and has been for many years based on the trail of reports, all closed as fixed only to be re-opened (I never experienced this in 1.6.4, vanilla or otherwise, only level.dat becoming corrupted, though a full drive has been reported to cause it in older versions, newer versions are also slower so there is more time for issues to occur). Either way, even if user error is the primary cause the game has to cleanly shut down, just as if you tried closing a word processor and it just closed without asking if you want to save (even something as basic as Windows Notepad does ask), or terminated itself without waiting for the file buffer to be fully flushed to disk.

This can only be caused by a resource pack - there is no way just the eyes of entities could be affected by CPU/GPU drivers, or anything else (like how even? One look at the texture of an entity is all you need to know, sure, if the eyes were some separate texture, but they aren't and other pixels (and textures) should also be affected, not the very specific ones where the eyes are, with the exception of spiders and endermen).

See this Reddit post from somebody who had a similar issue, it was caused by using a resource pack in a game without support for custom entity models (which requires Optifine, even the latest version still doesn't support custom entity models):

https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/oyolld/the_mobs_in_my_minecraft_world_have_weird_eyes/

In particular: https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/oyolld/comment/h7vqqn4/

Villagers do not despawn but they can certainly be killed by zombies, which actively seek them out - you must build a wall around and thoroughly light up any village you want to keep alive (example of what I do with villages, in an older version so not as much lighting is needed, I'd still do that for visibility though; example of how much zombies want to get to them, outside of a base which has villagers inside). Some people say that iron golems are enough but I would never rely on them (they are supposed to spawn much more often in newer version, even too much, they are no match for baby zombies in particular though, too slow and bulky). The fact that a creeper got into a boat which formerly had a villager in it proves that you did not do this (and no, mobs do not turn into other mobs, except if a villager is killed by a zombie, then it may become a zombie villager, depending on difficulty; the creeper just happened to wander into the now empty boat).

Quote from Zeno410»

As I've said before, my NoBaseSpawning mod *should* be preventing this. The only thing I can think of that might be causing trouble is carpet - maybe the carpet block is lowering light when NoBaseSpawning checks it?

// Increments y-coordinate if it is inside an opaque block (e.g. player is on lower half slabs). Assumes that skylight is 15
// if y-coordinate is 255.
boolean flag = (y == 255 && Block.lightOpacity[chunk.getBlockID(cx, y, cz)] >= 15);
if (y < 255 && Block.lightOpacity[chunk.getBlockID(cx, y, cz)] >= 15) ++y;

Quote from Svegon»

For reference, this is a thread about Minecraft JE beta 1.3.

Did your really post in a 12 year old thread just to say that? And not even a new user (based on join date)?

That said, this still happens in the latest version of the game as it is caused by the way the game places decorations, which overlap between chunks and many have specific requirements (for example, trees only generate on grass or dirt blocks with a direct view of the sky, meaning adjacent trees can block their growth), and since a single RNG, which is seeded once per chunk, is used to seed all decorations any changes will cascade to affect all subsequent decorations, and this will vary with the order chunks were generated in, which is consistent with the varying spawn locations given in the OP.

Given that the world spawn point is well-defined in newer versions it is much less likely for their to be significant differences in the area immediately around spawn but areas further away will only be identical if you explore the world in the exact same manner, and there could still be differences due to various post-world generation changes (e.g. fires randomly spread and when near the edge of generated chunks can change things enough to affect the placement of decorations).

MC-55596 Some chunks in the same world seed seem to have different versions

An example that is quite reproducible, depending on the direction you approached the area from (I had only tested two directions, north and south, but it is entirely possible that east and west could produce different results):

https://imgur.com/a/hkCz5t4

Another example which shows changes in a localized area near the bottom, as well as a spot near the lower-left ("new" and "new2"; the original world is more different since this was showing the impact of changes I'd made to my mod since I created the original world, as well as an example of inconsistent world generation between two instances of the same seed in the exact same version, even with my own code changes that make it less likely to cascade (each decoration step uses a new "chunk seed", so e,g. ores were unaffected, unlike the example above for vanilla):

Quote from Princess_Garnet»

And I prefer the lack of the darker Blue below the horizon. I always thought that looked awful, especially at higher altitudes. It's not always oceans on the horizon.

This might have been a side-effect of the internal server limiting the view distance to 10 when you set it to "Far" so loaded chunks don't cover it; I don't see it appearing in any screenshots taken from high up, even when looking down from very high up (as you go higher up the game shifts it down until it disappears into fog, but still cuts off the sun/moon/stars, until you go so high up it goes outside of the view frustum (far plane distance), but that is impossible in Survival (even the terrain eventually disappears if you go high enough).

Quote from Princess_Garnet»

The second Tuesday of each month is the day Windows pushes its monthly updates, so while that was a bit over a week ago now, if people started reporting this issue around a week ago (accounting for some lag time for those updating a bit later, and taking a few days to realize it), then there is some slight correlation with that timeframe. Not saying it is a Windows update that caused it but the timeframe does line up. Maybe Windows pushed an updated driver to some people that's causing it?

Somebody recently posted a similar thread in Support and said that updating their "MB drivers" (which I think means "motherboard") fixed the issue for them; as I also noted, a report on the official bug tracker seems to say that everybody with the issue was from northern Europe, so it could be affecting a regional computer brand (if not necessarily exclusive to the region):

https://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/support/java-edition-support/3187243-extended-loading-and-saveing-times

I don't get why these suggestions are still so popular; want an early game backpack? Make an ender chest, and Mojang is not going to make it as easy as crafting some leather and string to greatly expand your inventory (54 slots? Even if you could only carry one, e.g in the chestplate slot, as a backpack mod I once used had as an option?) Not only that, Mojang has in fact attempted to add such backpacks, only they called them "bundles" and they could only carry more types of items in one slot, not more total, and they have yet to make them a non-experimental feature after years (no idea why but balance might be one reason, even if they don't actually increase the total number of items you can carry; they also seem unintuitive to use, instead of working by right-clicking while holding them to display a GUI / inventory, as with any other container and as the backpack mod I used).

I could turn both ways and see the fog (and thus, time of day)

There was sky light at my location when I took this, thus the fog and sky weren't darkened:



A different angle with no sky light:



This was taken back when I used Optifine to disable void fog, which also disabled the darkening effect (not just the particles or closing in):



For comparison, it would now look like this - not much clues as to large it might be until I've actually gone in to explore it:



A view from a similar angle (and a higher render distance) after I'd explored it:



Similar to sky light, going above sea level does disable the darkening effect; this also shows another feature which has been missing since 1.8; the area below the horizon used to be blue and helped oceans blend in with the edge of loaded chunks, both in color and by hiding the sub/moon (which became visible above the water, not the seafloor, as they do in newer versions):

I didn't realize I went that far. I'm just using unenchanted iron pickaxes here (oh, and the people complaining deepslate takes too much longer to mine than stone... all I can say is wow is that overblown because it doesn't feel bad to me).

Anyone have an answer as to why I got this many diamonds to iron and gold?

(original source)

1.6.4 (based on my own analysis):
Coal: 155.6
Iron: 88.6
Redstone: 25.3
Gold: 8.5
Lapis: 3.53
Diamond: 3.19

1.17 (also based on my own analysis of a 1.8 world, with no changes until then)
Coal: 185.5
Iron: 111.5
Redstone: 29.1
Gold: 10.4
Lapis: 4.1
Diamond: 3.7

1.18 (based on an analysis somebody posted on Reddit)
Copper: 68.7
Coal: 62.0
Iron: 53.5
Redstone: 24.5
Gold: 17.6
Lapis: 16.3
Diamond: 10.4

Also, for good measure this is a chart I made of the ore distribution in TMCW, including data on ore exposure, which can be quite significant (over 20% of coal between layers 10-30 is exposed; the amount is higher due to its larger veins, and vice-versa for ores like emerald). There is also a noticeable drop in totals in the lower layers due to the volume of caves (I'd seen people complain about caves in 1.18 reducing the amount of ore due to less solid ground but the opposite is true if you consider exposed ores, and there is still plenty of solid ground, considering that the peak air fraction is less than 15% and a lot of that is concentrated in large open caves):

This seems to be a widespread issue all of a sudden; I wonder if somebody released a faulty driver update of some sort:

https://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-java-edition/discussion/3186987-autosave-lag-1-20-1 (numerous replies that it is also happening to them)

MC-265470 Autosave lag in single player vanilla (mentions multiple other reports on Reddit, seems to mostly/only affect northern Europe, which suggests a particular brand/model of computer is at fault)

Quote from Zeno410»

In the abstract, no, but there's just too much content for one person to backport. Note said project isn't done. If somebody could organize a team that would work; it seems kinda worth it because such a project would make it possible for ALL modders to work on that version and not face the endless Treadmill Of DOOOM! of trying to keep up the endless stream of updates coming out. If every modder who'd done something substantive on any of the "refuge" mod versions (1.7.10, 1.12.2, 16.5) had backported just *one* current feature we'd be done.

A technical problem is that Forge doesn't support old versions, which caused me quite a bit of trouble trying to get a modding setup working again. Dunno if it would be possible to get LexManos in on a "backport everything" project.

Backports aside, I see mods as a way to create your own unique experience, rather than just being "add-ons" to the base game, as I noted in this post on Reddit; future vanilla updates are completely irrelevant and may even clash with your modded content, or require major requites (which in my case means of the vanilla game; instead of rewriting my code I'd rewrite vanilla. e.g. add methods that use xyz variables or an "index" instead of BlockPos, a "block state" as a simple int instead of an object, arrays storing a numerical block ID instead of references to block/blockstate objects, and so on):

https://www.reddit.com/r/feedthebeast/comments/tc60yc/do_you_see_mods_as_updates_or_addons_to_vanilla/

Mods like TMCW are actually fairly popular for older versions (note that these are all different from your usual "add-on" mod; many completely change the game and purport to be "updates" with some even calling themselves e.g. Beta 1.7.4 (as if Mojang had continued the Beta 1.7.x series). TMCW itself just started as a collection of various changes to world generation, hence its name):

https://www.reddit.com/r/GoldenAgeMinecraft/comments/wd1k0o/any_obscure_overhaul_mods/

Also, referring to the discussion about terrain being independent of biomes, most biomes in TMCW actually have the same height variation, aside from "special" biomes like Plains, which are flatter, with "hilly" and "mountainous" biomes generating in all sorts of combinations (not just your old "hills in the middle of a biome, but you can also find the opposite, or half-normal/half hills; and yes, I have "hills" biomes generating as full-sized biomes, not just sub-biomes; note the various shades of orange in this "desert"):

// Sets min/max heights of most biomes; REGIONAL_HEIGHT is regional height variation added to min/max
protected static final float BIOME_MIN_HEIGHT = 0.2F;
protected static final float BIOME_MAX_HEIGHT = 0.7F;
protected static final float BIOME_REGIONAL_HEIGHT = 0.3F;
protected static final float HILLS_MIN_HEIGHT = 0.75F;
protected static final float HILLS_MAX_HEIGHT = 0.9F;
protected static final float HILLS_REGIONAL_HEIGHT = 0.4F;

// Example of biomes which do not use the standard heights (min, max, regional)
public static final BiomeGenBase plains ... .setHeight(0.1F, 0.15F, 0.1F);
public static final BiomeGenBase hillyPlains ... .setHeight(0.2F, 0.6F, 0.2F);
public static final BiomeGenBase hillyPlainsHills ... .setHeight(0.8F, 0.9F, 0.4F);