That is because there are multiple opinions in the community, so while the vocal group one update might want one thing, the vocal group the next might not want it. It annoys me when people like you seem to think these are the same people, they are not. They are two different groups that are vocal at different times. And that is because we can all think for ourselves, unlike the people on Reddit who share a hivemind and downvote you if you do not agree with it.
I couldn't have said it any better, down to reddit crowd behavior.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I was trying to think of a signature and this is what came up.
They way I want it:
1: Remove all the crazy combinations. (mega birch forest xl or whatever)
2: Make it have the old beta generation
3: don't have opposite-polar generation (desert next to snow forest)
Those are just my suggestions. ~
Reverting to the old beta generation would just be a step back when you take into consideration how many features would have to be sacrificed to do so. The beta generation has only a few advantages over 1.7, mainly height variation.
Keep in mind pre beta 1.8 had a temperature system like we have now, it was simply less intense due to biomes being the size of a small city block back then.
The beta generation has only a few advantages over 1.7, mainly height variation.
1.7 has a much higher height limit and makes full use of it, especially in Amplified world type, so I guess you are thinking of a specific property here that I'm not picking up on.
The level of contentiousness in this thread is kind of baffling to me. Can people not take the position that the way it is now is generally better than the way it was before, but it could still use some improvement, even if only to accommodate the people that would like more variety in the world? Surely it can't be that difficult to add an option to the world generation screen that reduces the degree of biome grouping.
(Tangentially, with regards to the argument that really extensive biomes are "more realistic," I can't help but compare this analysis to my hometown of Portland, OR, where we have access to basically every "biome" - except the jungle - only an hour or two's drive away. The ocean, the mountain, the desert, the forest - it's all pretty much right here. It's not an argument for or against anything, just an observation.)
One way or another this can all be solved by Mojang continuing to more fully open up the world generation system of minecraft to the vanilla users, not just modders.
They've made a great start with the different world types and such, it would just be nice to see them extend that flexibility even further. It would be great too if they modularized the terrain generator to the point where it would be easy to offer the prior version terrain generators as special options, taking into account the changes required to deal with new ores and flowers etc (which are a different layer of generation anyway).
I seriously doubt that the current default terrain generator will stay the same forever, but with mojang you never know how long it will be before any particular changes will be made. One day oceans and rivers are declared to be impossible to add to vanilla, the next day they are everywhere.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
- The Cubic Chunks Mod is back! Be a part of it's rebirth and Development.
-- Robinton's Mods: [ Mirror ] for some of his Mods incl Cubic Chunks Mod, due to DropBox broken links.
I don't like the new way the biomes generate in 1.7 either. It just killed the variety and made the world predictable. Also, because the biomes that appear are usually the same, it feels like they implemented large biomes in default.
In real life you would have to walk farther to find a new biome.
Get used to it.
I never understood people like you which thinks that realism is a good excuse to ruin the game. Videogames don't have to be like real life, you know? Or would you like to see all of your buildings destroyed by gravity?
I never understood people like you which thinks that realism is a good excuse to ruin the game. Videogames don't have to be like real life, you know? Or would you like to see all of your buildings destroyed by gravity?
I agree with the idea of what you are saying, that 'game play' should override realism when the two collide, but man would I LOVE to have a "Gravity" option I could turn on for worlds!!
-offtopic-
It could be "Simple Gravity" where it is assumed that any solid block that touches another solid block is affixed to the other block in some way so it wouldn't fall, but dirt would cave-in after a few seconds without a solid block beneath (giving you enough time to support it with solid blocks. Also; for instance; if you mined out underneath a stone block and there is not a solid block above it or connected to its sides (only dirt or sand etc) then it will have the same cave-in behavior. I would LOVE this! ** And most if not all currently built structures should be safe and not collapse. .. until you mine out the dirt underneath
Or, "Complex Gravity": where the game actually checks a certain distance out to make sure blocks have enough support from below and if they don't there will be a count-down to a larger cave-in. That would be an option for those who have a strong enough processor.
I agree with the idea of what you are saying, that 'game play' should override realism when the two collide, but man would I LOVE to have a "Gravity" option I could turn on for worlds!!
-offtopic-
It could be "Simple Gravity" where it is assumed that any solid block that touches another solid block is affixed to the other block in some way so it wouldn't fall, but dirt would cave-in after a few seconds without a solid block beneath (giving you enough time to support it with solid blocks. Also; for instance; if you mined out underneath a stone block and there is not a solid block above it or connected to its sides (only dirt or sand etc) then it will have the same cave-in behavior. I would LOVE this! ** And most if not all currently built structures should be safe and not collapse.
Or, "Complex Gravity": where the game actually checks a certain distance out to make sure blocks have enough support from below and if they don't there will be a count-down to a larger cave-in. That would be an option for those who have a strong enough processor.
LAG LAG LAG LAG LAG LAG
That wouldn't ever work. Imagine that it would be like every block is an enchanting table that has to check a huge space for bookshelves. I remember that Jeb once denied a request to make the range of bookshelf placement bigger because of the lag it would create. Imagine what this would do.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
XP Guide Regardless of what change you do, no matter how small, someone will complain. - Jens Bergensten If you want me to see your reply, make sure to quote my post in your reply.
That wouldn't ever work. Imagine that it would be like every block is an enchanting table that has to check a huge space for bookshelves. I remember that Jeb once denied a request to make the range of bookshelf placement bigger because of the lag it would create. Imagine what this would do.
"Simple Gravity" as I described should be much better, after all Terra Firma Craft has something similar to the "Simple Gravity" I described and yet people are able to use that mod just fine.
"Simple Gravity" as I described should be much better, after all Terra Firma Craft has something similar to the "Simple Gravity" I described and yet people are able to use that mod just fine.
Complex gravity would never work, even for people with strong processors.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
XP Guide Regardless of what change you do, no matter how small, someone will complain. - Jens Bergensten If you want me to see your reply, make sure to quote my post in your reply.
The level of contentiousness in this thread is kind of baffling to me. Can people not take the position that the way it is now is generally better than the way it was before, but it could still use some improvement, even if only to accommodate the people that would like more variety in the world? Surely it can't be that difficult to add an option to the world generation screen that reduces the degree of biome grouping.
(Tangentially, with regards to the argument that really extensive biomes are "more realistic," I can't help but compare this analysis to my hometown of Portland, OR, where we have access to basically every "biome" - except the jungle - only an hour or two's drive away. The ocean, the mountain, the desert, the forest - it's all pretty much right here. It's not an argument for or against anything, just an observation.)
AFAICT, that *is* the opinion of most posters here. I haven't seen anybody say 1.7 was perfect in every way, and several of the posters generally defending 1.7 (including me) have mentioned specific things they think would improve it.
I'm mostly trying to point out that *most* people would like there to *sometimes* be a reason to travel more than 2 minutes from spawn, and that the current system does pretty well in terms of encouragement/ requirement to travel. Specifically, you almost never *have* to travel any distance at all - you will normally find trees, food, and mining areas right at spawn. At the same time, for the vast majority of players, there will usually be some biome, and certainly some combination of biomes (Bryce next to ocean, Flower forest surrounded by mountains, etc.), you haven't found in your world yet, so there's always a reason to *want* to travel. But only when you feel like it.
It's true there are some places on earth with a wide variety of biomes within a short distance. But most of the time, it's a limited set. Again, the current system is pretty good about that - there are some seeds with a lot of variety in a smallish area, but most aren't. If you want a "variety" seed there have been plenty posted.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
I haven't seen anybody say 1.7 was perfect in every way, and several of the posters generally defending 1.7 (including me) have mentioned specific things they think would improve it.
So, then what makes everyone else's thoughts on what should be improved any less valid that yours?
Many people have given their reasons for not liking the 1.7 world generator and have clearly explained the issues that it causes them. Yet, you repeatedly refuse to acknowledge how anything they have said could be a problem and go on as if your thoughts are more important than theirs. This is exactly the kind of contentiousness that NoMoreFelonies is referring to.
If the world generator isn't "perfect" as you admit, then why do you try so hard to counter every claim that an improvement could be made? I think most people here have been more than rational in their reasoning when giving suggestions.
I'm mostly trying to point out that *most* people would like there to *sometimes* be a reason to travel more than 2 minutes from spawn, and that the current system does pretty well in terms of encouragement/ requirement to travel..
No one here has ever suggested that everything needs to be two minutes from spawn.
You talk about "encouragement to travel." Well right now we are forced to travel ridiculously long distances because of the biome clumping problem. There is a big difference between being forced and given an incentive.
Personally, I explore less now because you can go for 1,000's of blocks through the same boring biomes with the 1.7 terrain generations. It's just more of the same. Exploring is boring and a huge hassle, since I find no new interesting terrain and no new resources. I see absolutely no reason to explore.
Do you honestly think that exploring this endless desert, or having to travel through it to get to another biome would be fun? It's over 10,000 blocks across!
One half of the map is all temperate biomes and the other half is all desert. If there was more of a variety of interesting terrain and resources that would surely encourage more people to explore.
1.7 has a much higher height limit and makes full use of it, especially in Amplified world type, so I guess you are thinking of a specific property here that I'm not picking up on.
Height variation in this case meaning mountains or hills not being forced with a biome or subbiome (like ForestHills,TaigaHills, Savanna M, Extreme Hills) and naturally appear in the generator on their own with no height limits other than the actual world height.
Despite Extreme Hills being tall, it can never go as high as Savanna M due to there being an artificial height cap on the biome. The hill variations of other biomes can also never be as high as extreme hills due to an artificial cap. This also means mountains can never appear outside of these specific biomes, which causes a lot of flatland in most places. It was most notable pre-1.1 when there was only flatspace in any biome that was not Extreme Hills.
Amplified isn't really variation, the generator spams mountains everywhere.
You talk about "encouragement to travel." Well right now we are forced to travel ridiculously long distances because of the biome clumping problem. There is a big difference between being forced and given an incentive.
I agree. The argument that people will have now an encouragement to explore, just doesn't hold any water.
Minecraft always encouraged exploring. It's one thing it never lacked. Sightseeing has been an one of the reasons, especially when we had the old alpha/beta world generator with its so-called epic scenery. The other being the fact this is a sandbox game, generating random terrain in a semi-realistic way. People just tend to want to know what's beyond the horizon. Heck, during the large ocean days, many players would just ride a boat and explore across large extensions of water.
Another thing to think about is that "encouragement" sounds more like promoting a playstyle. When a game like Minecraft starts to hold your hand, something becomes broken in its design. People have different motivations to play Minecraft and not everyone is the explorer type. An open world sandbox, by definition, tries to stay clear from rigid and linear gameplay. What this means is that the option to explore should be there, but there shouldn't be any reason to actively encourage it. This would force non-explorer types to explore and would remove from them the whole idea of playing an open world sandbox game.
I don't even think it was ever the intention of the development team to encourage exploration. Mojang is well aware many players always explored their worlds. There was never a problem. The stronger focus on exploration is just an unintentional byproduct of the new world generator.
But to say that people are now encouraged to explore is to say that people should stick to a formulaic playstyle. And nothing could be more wrong in Minecraft.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I was trying to think of a signature and this is what came up.
AFAICT, that *is* the opinion of most posters here. I haven't seen anybody say 1.7 was perfect in every way, and several of the posters generally defending 1.7 (including me) have mentioned specific things they think would improve it
Where we seem to diverge in opinion is that if the people bringing up the complaints take the advice of most of the people here who are against making changes and "just get over it," then Mojang has no way of knowing that the idea has any support among their userbase and is therefore worth spending time on. Game companies are accustomed to their user bases complaining extensively about very trivial things; it's not like it's going to hurt their feelings. I just don't see why people, such as the gentleman above me, feel the need to inject snide and unhelpful comments into a discussion about game mechanics. Let people speak their mind, but I will say that it's perfectly fair to remind someone that they don't speak for everyone who plays the game.
I'm mostly trying to point out that *most* people would like there to *sometimes* be a reason to travel more than 2 minutes from spawn, and that the current system does pretty well in terms of encouragement/ requirement to travel. Specifically, you almost never *have* to travel any distance at all - you will normally find trees, food, and mining areas right at spawn. At the same time, for the vast majority of players, there will usually be some biome, and certainly some combination of biomes (Bryce next to ocean, Flower forest surrounded by mountains, etc.), you haven't found in your world yet, so there's always a reason to *want* to travel. But only when you feel like it.
It's true there are some places on earth with a wide variety of biomes within a short distance. But most of the time, it's a limited set. Again, the current system is pretty good about that - there are some seeds with a lot of variety in a smallish area, but most aren't. If you want a "variety" seed there have been plenty posted.
My SSP map is 1.7, which I played for a month or two before switching to 1.6.4 in order to use Forge. I have a mountain, a jungle, a desert, several bodies of water, plains, a taiga, and several different kinds of forest, all within about 1500 blocks of my spawn point. This is not an issue that is relevant to me personally. But it seems to me that if it's so easy to get the desired level of variety with a seed, it should be just as easy to add a simple "biome diversity: heavy, light, or one biome of your choosing" option to world creation
No one here has ever suggested that everything needs to be two minutes from spawn.
You talk about "encouragement to travel." Well right now we are forced to travel ridiculously long distances because of the biome clumping problem. There is a big difference between being forced and given an incentive.
Personally, I explore less now because you can go for 1,000's of blocks through the same boring biomes with the 1.7 terrain generations. It's just more of the same. Exploring is boring and a huge hassle, since I find no new interesting terrain and no new resources. I see absolutely no reason to explore.
Do you honestly think that exploring this endless desert, or having to travel through it to get to another biome would be fun? It's over 10,000 blocks across!
One half of the map is all temperate biomes and the other half is all desert. If there was more of a variety of interesting terrain and resources that would surely encourage more people to explore.
You specifically said you wanted everything within 500 blocks, which is about 2 minutes of walking.
That endless desert isn't an endless desert. It's a mix of desert and savanna, with some mesa and junctions to ocean and temperate terrain. Most routes across it are considerably less than 10,000, and in any case you could cross 10K on a horse in about 15 minutes. Horses have problems in temperate terrain, but they work fantastically well in deserts and pretty well in savanna.
In any case, what would you be looking for at that point? By the time you hit that hot zone, you'd already have found most of the temperate zone biomes. Mesa and jungle would show up exploring spawn-adjacent maps. You then can look for more temperate spots in the temperate zone you spawn in, more hot areas in the big hot zone, or stay home and build. It's an interesting map, with a lot of interesting game options. Yeah, you're going to have some serious exploring to find the snowy zones. What's the problem? There's snow on the local mountains and it'll give you something to do weeks or months down the line.
You can argue the zone are larger than you'd like, and that's a reasonable position. But that's an unusually large hot zone. Personally I think there should be hot zones too big to cross on a horse in *one* minecraft day. Given that this is the first time I've seen one posted, I don't think it's a problem. Minecraft does have a problem with a given biome always looking pretty much the same, and that's a problem, but jumbling up the biomes isn't going to help. In any case, the clumping is not a problem.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Just because some people want something changed doesn't mean that Mojang will change it. Haven't you seen the amount of threads asking for the rose?
They changed how world generation changed because some people were saying that some biomes next to each other (aka "cold" biomes near "hot biomes") look weird so they implemented the new temperature system, added new biomes and shrinked oceans considerabilly.
Personally, the "odd" placement of some biomes didnt bother me at all, in fact i find minecraft does not has to be "logical" or rational and doesnt has to be really attached to realism. As a person that disagrees now and then, i, as probably some others feel the need to express they dont agree with that change and maybe some want the things back and others (like me) just wants a solution that benefits most of us.
And that lame looking biome appears a lot in the 1.7 generator I've noticed. used to be the swamp biome was crap and no one really built there, its now that biome.
Odd. I haven't seen that before. Large expanses of stone, yes, but not that much gravel in one place.
I couldn't have said it any better, down to reddit crowd behavior.
Reverting to the old beta generation would just be a step back when you take into consideration how many features would have to be sacrificed to do so. The beta generation has only a few advantages over 1.7, mainly height variation.
Keep in mind pre beta 1.8 had a temperature system like we have now, it was simply less intense due to biomes being the size of a small city block back then.
1.7 has a much higher height limit and makes full use of it, especially in Amplified world type, so I guess you are thinking of a specific property here that I'm not picking up on.
(Tangentially, with regards to the argument that really extensive biomes are "more realistic," I can't help but compare this analysis to my hometown of Portland, OR, where we have access to basically every "biome" - except the jungle - only an hour or two's drive away. The ocean, the mountain, the desert, the forest - it's all pretty much right here. It's not an argument for or against anything, just an observation.)
They've made a great start with the different world types and such, it would just be nice to see them extend that flexibility even further. It would be great too if they modularized the terrain generator to the point where it would be easy to offer the prior version terrain generators as special options, taking into account the changes required to deal with new ores and flowers etc (which are a different layer of generation anyway).
I seriously doubt that the current default terrain generator will stay the same forever, but with mojang you never know how long it will be before any particular changes will be made. One day oceans and rivers are declared to be impossible to add to vanilla, the next day they are everywhere.
- The Cubic Chunks Mod is back! Be a part of it's rebirth and Development.
-- Robinton's Mods: [ Mirror ] for some of his Mods incl Cubic Chunks Mod, due to DropBox broken links.
- Dungeon Generator for the Open Cubic Chunks Mod
- QuickSAVE-QuickLOAD for the Open Cubic Chunks Mod
Get used to it.
I never understood people like you which thinks that realism is a good excuse to ruin the game. Videogames don't have to be like real life, you know? Or would you like to see all of your buildings destroyed by gravity?
I agree with the idea of what you are saying, that 'game play' should override realism when the two collide, but man would I LOVE to have a "Gravity" option I could turn on for worlds!!
-offtopic-
It could be "Simple Gravity" where it is assumed that any solid block that touches another solid block is affixed to the other block in some way so it wouldn't fall, but dirt would cave-in after a few seconds without a solid block beneath (giving you enough time to support it with solid blocks. Also; for instance; if you mined out underneath a stone block and there is not a solid block above it or connected to its sides (only dirt or sand etc) then it will have the same cave-in behavior. I would LOVE this! ** And most if not all currently built structures should be safe and not collapse. .. until you mine out the dirt underneath
Or, "Complex Gravity": where the game actually checks a certain distance out to make sure blocks have enough support from below and if they don't there will be a count-down to a larger cave-in. That would be an option for those who have a strong enough processor.
- The Cubic Chunks Mod is back! Be a part of it's rebirth and Development.
-- Robinton's Mods: [ Mirror ] for some of his Mods incl Cubic Chunks Mod, due to DropBox broken links.
- Dungeon Generator for the Open Cubic Chunks Mod
- QuickSAVE-QuickLOAD for the Open Cubic Chunks Mod
LAG LAG LAG LAG LAG LAG
That wouldn't ever work. Imagine that it would be like every block is an enchanting table that has to check a huge space for bookshelves. I remember that Jeb once denied a request to make the range of bookshelf placement bigger because of the lag it would create. Imagine what this would do.
Regardless of what change you do, no matter how small, someone will complain. - Jens Bergensten
If you want me to see your reply, make sure to quote my post in your reply.
"Simple Gravity" as I described should be much better, after all Terra Firma Craft has something similar to the "Simple Gravity" I described and yet people are able to use that mod just fine.
- The Cubic Chunks Mod is back! Be a part of it's rebirth and Development.
-- Robinton's Mods: [ Mirror ] for some of his Mods incl Cubic Chunks Mod, due to DropBox broken links.
- Dungeon Generator for the Open Cubic Chunks Mod
- QuickSAVE-QuickLOAD for the Open Cubic Chunks Mod
Complex gravity would never work, even for people with strong processors.
Regardless of what change you do, no matter how small, someone will complain. - Jens Bergensten
If you want me to see your reply, make sure to quote my post in your reply.
AFAICT, that *is* the opinion of most posters here. I haven't seen anybody say 1.7 was perfect in every way, and several of the posters generally defending 1.7 (including me) have mentioned specific things they think would improve it.
I'm mostly trying to point out that *most* people would like there to *sometimes* be a reason to travel more than 2 minutes from spawn, and that the current system does pretty well in terms of encouragement/ requirement to travel. Specifically, you almost never *have* to travel any distance at all - you will normally find trees, food, and mining areas right at spawn. At the same time, for the vast majority of players, there will usually be some biome, and certainly some combination of biomes (Bryce next to ocean, Flower forest surrounded by mountains, etc.), you haven't found in your world yet, so there's always a reason to *want* to travel. But only when you feel like it.
It's true there are some places on earth with a wide variety of biomes within a short distance. But most of the time, it's a limited set. Again, the current system is pretty good about that - there are some seeds with a lot of variety in a smallish area, but most aren't. If you want a "variety" seed there have been plenty posted.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
So, then what makes everyone else's thoughts on what should be improved any less valid that yours?
Many people have given their reasons for not liking the 1.7 world generator and have clearly explained the issues that it causes them. Yet, you repeatedly refuse to acknowledge how anything they have said could be a problem and go on as if your thoughts are more important than theirs. This is exactly the kind of contentiousness that NoMoreFelonies is referring to.
If the world generator isn't "perfect" as you admit, then why do you try so hard to counter every claim that an improvement could be made? I think most people here have been more than rational in their reasoning when giving suggestions.
No one here has ever suggested that everything needs to be two minutes from spawn.
You talk about "encouragement to travel." Well right now we are forced to travel ridiculously long distances because of the biome clumping problem. There is a big difference between being forced and given an incentive.
Personally, I explore less now because you can go for 1,000's of blocks through the same boring biomes with the 1.7 terrain generations. It's just more of the same. Exploring is boring and a huge hassle, since I find no new interesting terrain and no new resources. I see absolutely no reason to explore.
Do you honestly think that exploring this endless desert, or having to travel through it to get to another biome would be fun? It's over 10,000 blocks across!
One half of the map is all temperate biomes and the other half is all desert. If there was more of a variety of interesting terrain and resources that would surely encourage more people to explore.
Height variation in this case meaning mountains or hills not being forced with a biome or subbiome (like ForestHills,TaigaHills, Savanna M, Extreme Hills) and naturally appear in the generator on their own with no height limits other than the actual world height.
Despite Extreme Hills being tall, it can never go as high as Savanna M due to there being an artificial height cap on the biome. The hill variations of other biomes can also never be as high as extreme hills due to an artificial cap. This also means mountains can never appear outside of these specific biomes, which causes a lot of flatland in most places. It was most notable pre-1.1 when there was only flatspace in any biome that was not Extreme Hills.
Amplified isn't really variation, the generator spams mountains everywhere.
I agree. The argument that people will have now an encouragement to explore, just doesn't hold any water.
Minecraft always encouraged exploring. It's one thing it never lacked. Sightseeing has been an one of the reasons, especially when we had the old alpha/beta world generator with its so-called epic scenery. The other being the fact this is a sandbox game, generating random terrain in a semi-realistic way. People just tend to want to know what's beyond the horizon. Heck, during the large ocean days, many players would just ride a boat and explore across large extensions of water.
Another thing to think about is that "encouragement" sounds more like promoting a playstyle. When a game like Minecraft starts to hold your hand, something becomes broken in its design. People have different motivations to play Minecraft and not everyone is the explorer type. An open world sandbox, by definition, tries to stay clear from rigid and linear gameplay. What this means is that the option to explore should be there, but there shouldn't be any reason to actively encourage it. This would force non-explorer types to explore and would remove from them the whole idea of playing an open world sandbox game.
I don't even think it was ever the intention of the development team to encourage exploration. Mojang is well aware many players always explored their worlds. There was never a problem. The stronger focus on exploration is just an unintentional byproduct of the new world generator.
But to say that people are now encouraged to explore is to say that people should stick to a formulaic playstyle. And nothing could be more wrong in Minecraft.
Where we seem to diverge in opinion is that if the people bringing up the complaints take the advice of most of the people here who are against making changes and "just get over it," then Mojang has no way of knowing that the idea has any support among their userbase and is therefore worth spending time on. Game companies are accustomed to their user bases complaining extensively about very trivial things; it's not like it's going to hurt their feelings. I just don't see why people, such as the gentleman above me, feel the need to inject snide and unhelpful comments into a discussion about game mechanics. Let people speak their mind, but I will say that it's perfectly fair to remind someone that they don't speak for everyone who plays the game.
My SSP map is 1.7, which I played for a month or two before switching to 1.6.4 in order to use Forge. I have a mountain, a jungle, a desert, several bodies of water, plains, a taiga, and several different kinds of forest, all within about 1500 blocks of my spawn point. This is not an issue that is relevant to me personally. But it seems to me that if it's so easy to get the desired level of variety with a seed, it should be just as easy to add a simple "biome diversity: heavy, light, or one biome of your choosing" option to world creation
You specifically said you wanted everything within 500 blocks, which is about 2 minutes of walking.
That endless desert isn't an endless desert. It's a mix of desert and savanna, with some mesa and junctions to ocean and temperate terrain. Most routes across it are considerably less than 10,000, and in any case you could cross 10K on a horse in about 15 minutes. Horses have problems in temperate terrain, but they work fantastically well in deserts and pretty well in savanna.
In any case, what would you be looking for at that point? By the time you hit that hot zone, you'd already have found most of the temperate zone biomes. Mesa and jungle would show up exploring spawn-adjacent maps. You then can look for more temperate spots in the temperate zone you spawn in, more hot areas in the big hot zone, or stay home and build. It's an interesting map, with a lot of interesting game options. Yeah, you're going to have some serious exploring to find the snowy zones. What's the problem? There's snow on the local mountains and it'll give you something to do weeks or months down the line.
You can argue the zone are larger than you'd like, and that's a reasonable position. But that's an unusually large hot zone. Personally I think there should be hot zones too big to cross on a horse in *one* minecraft day. Given that this is the first time I've seen one posted, I don't think it's a problem. Minecraft does have a problem with a given biome always looking pretty much the same, and that's a problem, but jumbling up the biomes isn't going to help. In any case, the clumping is not a problem.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
They changed how world generation changed because some people were saying that some biomes next to each other (aka "cold" biomes near "hot biomes") look weird so they implemented the new temperature system, added new biomes and shrinked oceans considerabilly.
Personally, the "odd" placement of some biomes didnt bother me at all, in fact i find minecraft does not has to be "logical" or rational and doesnt has to be really attached to realism. As a person that disagrees now and then, i, as probably some others feel the need to express they dont agree with that change and maybe some want the things back and others (like me) just wants a solution that benefits most of us.
Wait... is that gravel?
I'm pretty sure the odds of that happening are incredibly slim
Odd. I haven't seen that before. Large expanses of stone, yes, but not that much gravel in one place.