A lot of people have requested that I clean up my post and I agree. I kind of just threw ideas down as they came to mind, so here it is:
A new type of world available when generating a new world
-A new option available under world generation where you can choose either "planar" or "planetary" (or whatever other name would sound better)
-Planar would be the way the world is the now, flat with xyz coordinates, "unlimited" world size
-Planetary would be planet like with continents, biomes and seasons similar to earth, which is the new mode I am suggesting here
Coordinate System
-Players locations would be measured by latitude, longitude and altitude.
Example: 45.375868°N, 17.64399°W, A: 65.000
Size
-A circumference of 36 000 blocks would be acceptable to me, as it would be large enough to make the surface appear flat from the ground, and traveling around the globe would take considerable effort, but would be do-able. If it was too big, like the size of the moon (300 times larger) you would have to travel 11 million blocks to go around the globe. Currently there are not fast enough methods of travel to make that feasible (besides teleportation).
-A circumference of 36 000 blocks (or other multiples of 360) would be ideal for measuring distances. 1000 blocks would be 10° around the globe, and 100 blocks would be 1° which would correspond to 1° of latitude or 1° of longitude at the equator
Seasons
-Currently a full day in minecraft is 20 minutes long, therefore there are three days in an hour, 30 days in 10 hours and 360 days (about a year) in 120 hours. If we assume there are four distinct seasons, the equinoxes and solstices would occur every 30 hours which seems like a reasonable length for seasons in minecraft.
-Seasons would not change instantaneously, they would be progressive as in real life
-The variance of seasons would be dependent on the region of the globe, as in real life. Regions closer to the equator would experience less variance, regions farther from the equator would experience distinct seasons, while the poles would have extreme seasons.
-In temperate climates, leaves would change color in the fall and fall off in the winter
-In tropical climates leaves would be on the trees year round
-In polar climates, trees with leaves would not grow (pine trees only)
Biomes
-General biomes would include:
• Plains
• Taiga
• Desert
• Tundra
• Extreme Hills (mountain)
• Mesa
• Arctic (would occur in areas of permanent winter)
• Beach
• Tropical (would feature permanent summer and lush rainforests as seen in places like Brazil and Hawaii)
• Tropical Beach (Same as beach except would include tropical plants such as palm trees (with coconuts) and banana trees)
• Savannah
• Forest
• Swamp
• Jungle
• Ocean
• Deep Ocean
• Lake
• River
• Mushroom
• Volcanic
-Instead of being generated randomly, biomes would be generated based on geographical location and plate tectonic theory as ZediAmfi elaborated on. For example: regions far inland would most likely be desert, while the same region if too far from the equator would be tundra. regions where tectonic plates converge would have mountains, and regions close to the equator would be tropical, so on so forth.
-Biomes would be dynamic to a degree, meaning in the winter the snowy biomes around the poles would expand and in the summer they would recede
Continents
-Continents would be generated by random seed which would include a plate tectonic generator algorithm. The shape of the continents would be a result of the shape and motion of the generated plates.
-There would be an option in the world generation menu with a slider bar to adjust the average continent size; one extreme would generate one large continent like Pangea, while the other extreme would generate thousands of small islands.
-Regardless of the size of continents generated, small islands (such as Hawaii) would appear in the ocean and would likely be a combination of volcanic and tropical biomes
Other Options
-Tilt: the tilt of the planet's axis could be adjusted from 0° to 180° which would create interesting effects. (a tilt greater than 90 degrees would result in apparent retrograde rotation)
-Size: the size of the planet could be adjusted between set limits
-Rotation Speed: The speed of the planet's rotation could be adjusted to allow different day lengths
¬-Seeds would still be available and may include a seed that would make the planet look like earth
New Factors
Because of the spherical nature of the world, there would be noticeable changes in:
-Sun direction: In the northern hemisphere, the sun would travel from east to south to west, in the southern hemisphere, the sun would travel from east to north to west assuming the tilt was similar to Earth's. Planets with more radical tilts would experience more extreme results such as the sun rising in the west
-Climate: Climate would vary by geographical location, season and other effects determined during the creation of the world such as the axial tilt of the planet. A planet with a tilt close to 90° would experience extreme weather, one side of the planet would be constantly baked by the sun, creating half a planet of desert, while the other side would be in perpetual darkness. The sun would make one circle around the planet a year (120 hours) and every biome would change throughout the year. The half of the globe that was desert for part of the year would be tundra for another. In between those biomes would be a sliver of normal biomes which would exist in the "twilight zone" a thin band around the planet that would get wider until it engulfed the whole planet at the equinox, then shrink back to a sliver at the solstice
-Time zones: Because the planet would be round and the sun would only light one half at a time, there would be time zones, they wouldn't be definite well defined time zones like we have in the real world since there is no clock in minecraft, but if you were to travel fast in the same direction as the sun the day would feel unusually long, or unusually short if you traveled the other way. As far as setting the time by command goes it would set the game to the chosen time at the location of a player that would be specified in the code. If no player was specified it would go by the player who entered the command.
-Arctic Circles: arctic and antarctic circles would vary in size based on the severity of the planet's tilt, but similar features as seen on earth would be noticeable. One major feature would be perpetual darkness in the winter and 24-hour daylight in the summer
Issues
-The one major, possibly show-stopping issue with this idea is that if the blocks followed the lines of longitude along a spherical surface they would become very distorted around the poles. I don't really know how one would solve this issue, but I'm open to suggestions. Maybe the blocks wouldn't follow the longitude lines, the world would actually be flat and it would just repeat as if it were a globe. the longitude lines could perhaps warp as they do on a 2D map
Community Suggestions
-Lunar and Solar eclipses
-Choose spawn point distance from equator (possibly connected to game difficulty)
-No time zones: this would not be possible unless the sun could light both sides of the planet at the same time meaning there would be no night ever. The sun has to set somewhere, on a flat world it can just go below the horizon, but on a sphere there technically is no horizon, it can't just disappear. As annoying as time zones would be, they would be a mandatory side effect of a round world.
If this feature ever gets built into the game it will probably be a long way away and I am prepared for that, but even if the idea just gets to Mojang and they consider it, that would be pretty cool. At the very least, a toned down version of this could be easily created where the world is still flat but the biomes are still arranged by climate as ZediAmfi mentioned.
50% Support Time Zones and Seasons (In My Opinion) would be annoying, I like the overall Idea of the Planetary world and how the biomes depend on the Latitude. Althought get rid of the Tropical Biome part, for your thread may be locked because its vague and kind of a seperate Idea. I wDon't want a good thread like this to get blocked.
Could you please clean up your suggestion? I'd like to read it but it's difficult when all I see is a wall of text.
If it's what I think it is, turning the flat world into a round world, I don't really see the point. The world is already gigantic, and wrapping around doesn't really improve anything that I can think of. And if this is about seasons, then there doesn't need to be a round world for those.
I like this idea, but a few things need to be changed around. Can you clean up your post and organize so it's easier to read? Also, I do believe that "Flat world" Should be named something else since there is already a world type called "Flat world" or "Flat lands" by some people.
I like it. Though I would like a larger world about 1000 times larger, closer to Earth size.
I had an idea of Biomes created based on latitude and plate tectonic theory. Mountains would be formed at edges of plate boundaries, biomes would be determined by latitude (basic wind directions) and location of mountains (is the area leeward or windward of a mountain?) Could throw in axial tilt if you wanted seasonal or hemispheric variations. Would make a good world generation tool/mod, I think.
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The blocky nature of Minecraft would make any sort of curving difficult without noticably affecting the gravity in the game. It sounds like a great idea in theory, but the mechanics of it would most likely be too complex and intensive for some computers to handle. 45% support.
Seasons- On paper (pre-say) it makes since for a year to last 60 hours. But I think that would have a weird effect on game play. I always have thought that season would be nice, but it would never work right. Say you spawn in a world during winter, how would you get food? Unless you are lucky and spawn next to a river and a few herds you will starve. To prevent this you would always have to spawn in summer/spring which would take some random ness out of the game.
Sphere- How do you make a sphere out of blocks? We all have seen it, a bunch of levels the get larger the closer to the middle. The larger the sphere the more rounded it become, yet it will always have "corners." This would be particular awkward when trying to traverse the world. Also Mojang would have to recreate "gravity" to deal with the curvature.
Time zones- They seem like you are over thinking it. I don't think they are even needed.
Personally I think this would be better as a mod than vanilla.
But maybe instead of HAVING a sphere, we could SIMULATE a sphere, Say, the world size is from -10 to +10, when you cross +10, you end up in -10. Am i making sense?
I get what you're saying, I kinda mentioned it in my initial post. It would work kind of like a map i guess, but it might get kind of weird around the poles, where maps are usually the most distorted.
But maybe instead of HAVING a sphere, we could SIMULATE a sphere, Say, the world size is from -10 to +10, when you cross +10, you end up in -10. Am i making sense?
I get what you're saying, I kinda mentioned it in my initial post. It would work kind of like a map i guess, but it might get kind of weird around the poles, where maps are usually the most distorted.
Good idea! Maybe you should be able to choose your distance to spawn from the equator, just in case you want a certain type of land. Also, I suggest making this a painful journey to walk around, about earth size. If thought of as flat, that would be an area of 714193x714193 blocks.
Support!
I forgot to add that the moon should follow correct paths as well. Could you add to the list to have lunar and solar eclipses? That would be so cool!
I get what you're saying, I kinda mentioned it in my initial post. It would work kind of like a map i guess, but it might get kind of weird around the poles, where maps are usually the most distorted.
Not if "halved" the world at the equator. This would allow you to sill be able to make the "planet" have different tilts because the major differences are only visible the farther from the equator. So if you say made the world a flat, circular, plain with centers at the poles it would not cause the distortion.
Or you could make it like how Galaticraft shows Minecraftia, a giant cube. If you made it so that there are 6 maps (one for each side) it would still allow for all the features with out having as difficult time for rendering.
Good idea! Maybe you should be able to choose your distance to spawn from the equator, just in case you want a certain type of land. Also, I suggest making this a painful journey to walk around, about earth size. If though of as flat, that would be an area of 714193x714193 blocks.
Support!
I forgot to add that the moon should follow correct paths as well. Could you add to the list to have lunar and solar eclipses? That would be so cool!
I thought about that too -about the moon. I think it would be really cool, but i don't know if Mojang would want to do it. The moon follows a very complex orbit that "wobbles" by about 10° every 18.6 years meaning it will never be in the same position more than twice every 18.6 years. To simulate this they would have to develop an algorithm that would be able to determine the moon's position every moment for 18.6 years. If you wanted proper eclipses, you would also have to determine the earth's orbit around the sun. Of course that would be if they wanted it to be accurate. I suppose they could just make some stuff up. I will add that to the list for you.
As for the earth size planet, the earth has a circumference of 40,078km which would translate to 40 million blocks. If you flew the whole way at the standard flying speed of 38.9km/h it would take you 1030 hours or about 43days to travel around the globe. In minecraft that would translate to about 8.6 years. That seems a little beyond painful to me. At the size i suggested it would take 56 minutes to fly around the globe and 1hr/47mins to sprint. That may not seem long, but keep in mind that for that entire period of time you are doing absolutely nothing except holding down W. Even a 5 minute walk feels like forever in minecraft. Not only that, but you also have to consider cpu power: 40 million blocks is only the circumference. If you assume an average land depth of 65 blocks, there would be about 33,154,680,000,000,000 (33 quadrillion) blocks that would have to be rendered and saved in the world files. That being said, i like the idea of an earth-sized planet and i want it to work, but i don't think it is feasible… not yet anyway.
I thought about that too -about the moon. I think it would be really cool, but i don't know if Mojang would want to do it. The moon follows a very complex orbit that "wobbles" by about 10° every 18.6 years meaning it will never be in the same position more than twice every 18.6 years. To simulate this they would have to develop an algorithm that would be able to determine the moon's position every moment for 18.6 years. If you wanted proper eclipses, you would also have to determine the earth's orbit around the sun. Of course that would be if they wanted it to be accurate. I suppose they could just make some stuff up. I will add that to the list for you.
As for the earth size planet, the earth has a circumference of 40,078km which would translate to 40 million blocks. If you flew the whole way at the standard flying speed of 38.9km/h it would take you 1030 hours or about 43days to travel around the globe. In minecraft that would translate to about 8.6 years. That seems a little beyond painful to me. At the size i suggested it would take 56 minutes to fly around the globe and 1hr/47mins to sprint. That may not seem long, but keep in mind that for that entire period of time you are doing absolutely nothing except holding down W. Even a 5 minute walk feels like forever in minecraft. Not only that, but you also have to consider cpu power: 40 million blocks is only the circumference. If you assume an average land depth of 65 blocks, there would be about 33,154,680,000,000,000 (33 quadrillion) blocks that would have to be rendered and saved in the world files. That being said, i like the idea of an earth-sized planet and i want it to work, but i don't think it is feasible… not yet anyway.
Not feasible with the average computer running Java, now if it was C++ it would be possible.
About the moon. When you look at the sky the moon looks like it take the same orbit since you can't really see the little bit of a difference it moves. Kind of like the moon never looks larger or smaller when it moves closer and further from the earth. Maybe if it ran a simpler algorithm that determined the approximate. Also since most people would not play in a single world long enough for it to really make a difference or even see more than a few eclipses.
I agree. A simple algorithm for the moon would probably do fine. Maybe even if they were randomly generated that would work, then it would be more of a surprise as to when the eclipses occur.
*edit: ignore this, I keep forgetting to quote posts. *sigh*
Not feasible with the average computer running Java, now if it was C++ it would be possible.
About the moon. When you look at the sky the moon looks like it take the same orbit since you can't really see the little bit of a difference it moves. Kind of like the moon never looks larger or smaller when it moves closer and further from the earth. Maybe if it ran a simpler algorithm that determined the approximate. Also since most people would not play in a single world long enough for it to really make a difference or even see more than a few eclipses.
I agree. A simple algorithm for the moon would probably do fine. Maybe even if they were randomly generated that would work, then it would be more of a surprise as to when the eclipses occur.
Now what about other dimensions? Will the nether be round as well, or "rendered" under the bedrock? This would mean you would "Fall" through the void in creative for a few seconds while the nether took its time to load. Once finished, you would land on top of the nether.
A new type of world available when generating a new world
-A new option available under world generation where you can choose either "planar" or "planetary" (or whatever other name would sound better)
-Planar would be the way the world is the now, flat with xyz coordinates, "unlimited" world size
-Planetary would be planet like with continents, biomes and seasons similar to earth, which is the new mode I am suggesting here
Coordinate System
-Players locations would be measured by latitude, longitude and altitude.
Example: 45.375868°N, 17.64399°W, A: 65.000
Size
-A circumference of 36 000 blocks would be acceptable to me, as it would be large enough to make the surface appear flat from the ground, and traveling around the globe would take considerable effort, but would be do-able. If it was too big, like the size of the moon (300 times larger) you would have to travel 11 million blocks to go around the globe. Currently there are not fast enough methods of travel to make that feasible (besides teleportation).
-A circumference of 36 000 blocks (or other multiples of 360) would be ideal for measuring distances. 1000 blocks would be 10° around the globe, and 100 blocks would be 1° which would correspond to 1° of latitude or 1° of longitude at the equator
Seasons
-Currently a full day in minecraft is 20 minutes long, therefore there are three days in an hour, 30 days in 10 hours and 360 days (about a year) in 120 hours. If we assume there are four distinct seasons, the equinoxes and solstices would occur every 30 hours which seems like a reasonable length for seasons in minecraft.
-Seasons would not change instantaneously, they would be progressive as in real life
-The variance of seasons would be dependent on the region of the globe, as in real life. Regions closer to the equator would experience less variance, regions farther from the equator would experience distinct seasons, while the poles would have extreme seasons.
-In temperate climates, leaves would change color in the fall and fall off in the winter
-In tropical climates leaves would be on the trees year round
-In polar climates, trees with leaves would not grow (pine trees only)
Biomes
-General biomes would include:
• Plains
• Taiga
• Desert
• Tundra
• Extreme Hills (mountain)
• Mesa
• Arctic (would occur in areas of permanent winter)
• Beach
• Tropical (would feature permanent summer and lush rainforests as seen in places like Brazil and Hawaii)
• Tropical Beach (Same as beach except would include tropical plants such as palm trees (with coconuts) and banana trees)
• Savannah
• Forest
• Swamp
• Jungle
• Ocean
• Deep Ocean
• Lake
• River
• Mushroom
• Volcanic
-Instead of being generated randomly, biomes would be generated based on geographical location and plate tectonic theory as ZediAmfi elaborated on. For example: regions far inland would most likely be desert, while the same region if too far from the equator would be tundra. regions where tectonic plates converge would have mountains, and regions close to the equator would be tropical, so on so forth.
-Biomes would be dynamic to a degree, meaning in the winter the snowy biomes around the poles would expand and in the summer they would recede
Continents
-Continents would be generated by random seed which would include a plate tectonic generator algorithm. The shape of the continents would be a result of the shape and motion of the generated plates.
-There would be an option in the world generation menu with a slider bar to adjust the average continent size; one extreme would generate one large continent like Pangea, while the other extreme would generate thousands of small islands.
-Regardless of the size of continents generated, small islands (such as Hawaii) would appear in the ocean and would likely be a combination of volcanic and tropical biomes
Other Options
-Tilt: the tilt of the planet's axis could be adjusted from 0° to 180° which would create interesting effects. (a tilt greater than 90 degrees would result in apparent retrograde rotation)
-Size: the size of the planet could be adjusted between set limits
-Rotation Speed: The speed of the planet's rotation could be adjusted to allow different day lengths
¬-Seeds would still be available and may include a seed that would make the planet look like earth
New Factors
Because of the spherical nature of the world, there would be noticeable changes in:
-Sun direction: In the northern hemisphere, the sun would travel from east to south to west, in the southern hemisphere, the sun would travel from east to north to west assuming the tilt was similar to Earth's. Planets with more radical tilts would experience more extreme results such as the sun rising in the west
-Climate: Climate would vary by geographical location, season and other effects determined during the creation of the world such as the axial tilt of the planet. A planet with a tilt close to 90° would experience extreme weather, one side of the planet would be constantly baked by the sun, creating half a planet of desert, while the other side would be in perpetual darkness. The sun would make one circle around the planet a year (120 hours) and every biome would change throughout the year. The half of the globe that was desert for part of the year would be tundra for another. In between those biomes would be a sliver of normal biomes which would exist in the "twilight zone" a thin band around the planet that would get wider until it engulfed the whole planet at the equinox, then shrink back to a sliver at the solstice
-Time zones: Because the planet would be round and the sun would only light one half at a time, there would be time zones, they wouldn't be definite well defined time zones like we have in the real world since there is no clock in minecraft, but if you were to travel fast in the same direction as the sun the day would feel unusually long, or unusually short if you traveled the other way. As far as setting the time by command goes it would set the game to the chosen time at the location of a player that would be specified in the code. If no player was specified it would go by the player who entered the command.
-Arctic Circles: arctic and antarctic circles would vary in size based on the severity of the planet's tilt, but similar features as seen on earth would be noticeable. One major feature would be perpetual darkness in the winter and 24-hour daylight in the summer
Issues
-The one major, possibly show-stopping issue with this idea is that if the blocks followed the lines of longitude along a spherical surface they would become very distorted around the poles. I don't really know how one would solve this issue, but I'm open to suggestions. Maybe the blocks wouldn't follow the longitude lines, the world would actually be flat and it would just repeat as if it were a globe. the longitude lines could perhaps warp as they do on a 2D map
Community Suggestions
-Lunar and Solar eclipses
-Choose spawn point distance from equator (possibly connected to game difficulty)
-No time zones: this would not be possible unless the sun could light both sides of the planet at the same time meaning there would be no night ever. The sun has to set somewhere, on a flat world it can just go below the horizon, but on a sphere there technically is no horizon, it can't just disappear. As annoying as time zones would be, they would be a mandatory side effect of a round world.
If this feature ever gets built into the game it will probably be a long way away and I am prepared for that, but even if the idea just gets to Mojang and they consider it, that would be pretty cool. At the very least, a toned down version of this could be easily created where the world is still flat but the biomes are still arranged by climate as ZediAmfi mentioned.
If it's what I think it is, turning the flat world into a round world, I don't really see the point. The world is already gigantic, and wrapping around doesn't really improve anything that I can think of. And if this is about seasons, then there doesn't need to be a round world for those.
If you are planning to make a suggestion, please read this.
If you want to know more, you can read this.
For those who complain about post-Beta generation, you might want to see this.
I like this idea, but a few things need to be changed around. Can you clean up your post and organize so it's easier to read? Also, I do believe that "Flat world" Should be named something else since there is already a world type called "Flat world" or "Flat lands" by some people.
I had an idea of Biomes created based on latitude and plate tectonic theory. Mountains would be formed at edges of plate boundaries, biomes would be determined by latitude (basic wind directions) and location of mountains (is the area leeward or windward of a mountain?) Could throw in axial tilt if you wanted seasonal or hemispheric variations. Would make a good world generation tool/mod, I think.
Seasons- On paper (pre-say) it makes since for a year to last 60 hours. But I think that would have a weird effect on game play. I always have thought that season would be nice, but it would never work right. Say you spawn in a world during winter, how would you get food? Unless you are lucky and spawn next to a river and a few herds you will starve. To prevent this you would always have to spawn in summer/spring which would take some random ness out of the game.
Sphere- How do you make a sphere out of blocks? We all have seen it, a bunch of levels the get larger the closer to the middle. The larger the sphere the more rounded it become, yet it will always have "corners." This would be particular awkward when trying to traverse the world. Also Mojang would have to recreate "gravity" to deal with the curvature.
Time zones- They seem like you are over thinking it. I don't think they are even needed.
Personally I think this would be better as a mod than vanilla.
But maybe instead of HAVING a sphere, we could SIMULATE a sphere, Say, the world size is from -10 to +10, when you cross +10, you end up in -10. Am i making sense?
http://www.glassner.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CGResearch-DynStrat-Reference-800-800.jpg
I get what you're saying, I kinda mentioned it in my initial post. It would work kind of like a map i guess, but it might get kind of weird around the poles, where maps are usually the most distorted.
Support!
I forgot to add that the moon should follow correct paths as well. Could you add to the list to have lunar and solar eclipses? That would be so cool!
Not if "halved" the world at the equator. This would allow you to sill be able to make the "planet" have different tilts because the major differences are only visible the farther from the equator. So if you say made the world a flat, circular, plain with centers at the poles it would not cause the distortion.
Or you could make it like how Galaticraft shows Minecraftia, a giant cube. If you made it so that there are 6 maps (one for each side) it would still allow for all the features with out having as difficult time for rendering.
I thought about that too -about the moon. I think it would be really cool, but i don't know if Mojang would want to do it. The moon follows a very complex orbit that "wobbles" by about 10° every 18.6 years meaning it will never be in the same position more than twice every 18.6 years. To simulate this they would have to develop an algorithm that would be able to determine the moon's position every moment for 18.6 years. If you wanted proper eclipses, you would also have to determine the earth's orbit around the sun. Of course that would be if they wanted it to be accurate. I suppose they could just make some stuff up. I will add that to the list for you.
As for the earth size planet, the earth has a circumference of 40,078km which would translate to 40 million blocks. If you flew the whole way at the standard flying speed of 38.9km/h it would take you 1030 hours or about 43days to travel around the globe. In minecraft that would translate to about 8.6 years. That seems a little beyond painful to me. At the size i suggested it would take 56 minutes to fly around the globe and 1hr/47mins to sprint. That may not seem long, but keep in mind that for that entire period of time you are doing absolutely nothing except holding down W. Even a 5 minute walk feels like forever in minecraft. Not only that, but you also have to consider cpu power: 40 million blocks is only the circumference. If you assume an average land depth of 65 blocks, there would be about 33,154,680,000,000,000 (33 quadrillion) blocks that would have to be rendered and saved in the world files. That being said, i like the idea of an earth-sized planet and i want it to work, but i don't think it is feasible… not yet anyway.
Not feasible with the average computer running Java, now if it was C++ it would be possible.
About the moon. When you look at the sky the moon looks like it take the same orbit since you can't really see the little bit of a difference it moves. Kind of like the moon never looks larger or smaller when it moves closer and further from the earth. Maybe if it ran a simpler algorithm that determined the approximate. Also since most people would not play in a single world long enough for it to really make a difference or even see more than a few eclipses.
*edit: ignore this, I keep forgetting to quote posts. *sigh*
I agree. A simple algorithm for the moon would probably do fine. Maybe even if they were randomly generated that would work, then it would be more of a surprise as to when the eclipses occur.