A few years ago I made this thread, wherein I began with Minecraft Infdev, and moved through the updates with each journal entry. The goal was to play all the way up until the current version, and have a large explored area above ground so you can see the changes in terrain generation as the game developed, among other things.
After getting a new laptop recently, I decided to give that another go, except a bit differently. Rather than have each entry roll over to the next version, I will play on a single version for as long as necessary until I feel I've gotten the most out of it (meaning a single version could encompass multiple entries).
Entry #1
We begin, again, with InfDev. Particularly the build released on June 18th of 2010, as the numbers in its name (provided in the launcher) would indicate. This is neither the first or last InfDev build, but it is the build that contained the very first Seecret Friday Update. In my original thread I mentioned the Brick Pyramids, and the possibility of seeing them in the available Infdev build, but I am unable to find anything concrete pertaining to when they were removed. This website says March 27th, 2010, in my original thread I somehow came up with June 27th, 2010, and this forum post shows a user discovering one in June of 2018. Perhaps that forum user is able to run even older Infdev builds; otherwise, I can't imagine how he found that. In spite of my confidence the first time around, it seems Brick Pyramids won't be a possibility here, but there's plenty to look back on, experience, and compare to what we have now.
This update (Seecret Friday Update 1, infdev061810) added the following to Minecraft:
Something very interesting about minecarts that I did not know when making my original thread: originally, minecarts could not be ridden. Instead, they were used as storage (source), with a rising amount of dirt inside the minecart indicating how full it is (example). I'm definitely gonna get my hands on that, but first, I'll need a home:
It isn't much right now, but my primary focus is on mining. There's a few interesting things to note early on.
White wool (and you didn't need shears to get more than once piece) appeared more gray than white. In addition, wool was used to craft leather armor (called cloth armor) instead of leather, as cows didn't exist yet.
The door's inventory thumbnail was completely opaque, though the door model itself is still roughly the same as it is today.
The top side of furnaces did not have their own texture, instead just using the stone texture.
Sorry if the flow of this post seems disjointed, it's mostly because I type the post up while I play along. Anyways, some interesting things about caves in ancient Minecraft.
A lot of cave branches end in thin corridors like this, where one side of the wall is clearly the "cave" (rugged walls) and the other appears to be almost completely flat, as if the cave tried to generate across to a neighboring chunk but couldn't for whatever reason. This reminds me a lot of running in to the world border underground in the old console versions of Minecraft, except in this case it's obviously not the world edge.
Sometimes you'll even get this:
Instances where the cave appears to end, except for a hole precisely one block large that clearly shows that the system continues. I see this just as frequently as I see the aforementioned thin/flat cave corridors. Caving overall is a very different experience to modern-day Minecraft, to no one's surprise I'm sure. Ore veins specifically are much less generous, with less blocks per vein.
A couple more shots of my short caving trip. At the top is what appears to be a "circle room," I didn't think those were implemented this far back. I took the next picture because I always favored the older lava texture.
The cave goes on and gets much larger, but I didn't feel confident going forward until I could go home and stock up. While there, I had enough iron to create this:
That...is a Minecart. Seriously, I have no idea what that is supposed to even be. It's most certainly a Minecart though, as confirmed when I placed it down. I even checked the wiki to make sure the icon actually looked like this at one point and wasn't a glitch.
And here we have it,
Minecart chest, without the chest.
It's as unexciting as it looks, but it's just so quirky I couldn't help myself. I also like the appearance. I stacked it full of dirt, and will leave it here as is. I'm curious to see what will happen to the storage once this system is removed and they are replaced with Chest minecarts.
That was my goal for this session - I might actually use these minecarts for more than just experimentation; if you check my thread for my PS3 world you'll find I'm a huge fan of rails. With that out of the way, this entry is concluded. For the next entry, I will remain in Infdev, and work on properly settling in my surrounding area.
Misc tidbits and quirks from my original thread:
There is no sound. To my knowledge, the oldest version of Minecraft with functioning sound is Alpha 1.1.2_01. Whether a fix has been found, I wouldn't know. For now, my game is played in silence.
Dropped items did not have a rotating 3D model like they do now.
Instead, they were flat sprites that rotated based on the direction from
which the player was looking at them.
Right clicking a door yields no animation from the player. The door simply opens/closes.
Left clicking also opens doors, with the added bonus of player
animation.
A lot of cave branches end in thin corridors like this, where one side of the wall is clearly the "cave" (rugged walls) and the other appears to be almost completely flat, as if the cave tried to generate across to a neighboring chunk but couldn't for whatever reason. This reminds me a lot of running in to the world border underground in the old console versions of Minecraft, except in this case it's obviously not the world edge.
This was a bug which was fixed in Beta 1.8, with the same issue affecting caves in the Nether until release 1.5:
MC-7196 Nether cave/tunnel generator produces incorrect/cut tunnels (caused by using the same common RNG, rather than a separate one for the tunnels themselves, which unpredictably changes the sequence due to an optimization which checks if a tunnel can reach the current chunk, aborting if it can't to save CPU cycles)
Notably, there are similar bugs that still exist as of the latest version (as far as I know my own mods are the only ones that fix them, or in the case of the last one, never had them):
MC-172887 Circular caves below lava level in the Nether do not align at chunk boundaries (caused by caves not generating if there is any lava in their way, including lava placed by caves themselves; I avoided this by only checking for lava above layer 15, above cave lava level but below the deepest lava seas. Also, this does not happen in older versions, including 1.6.4, the version I mod, since Nether caves didn't have lava, while I added it using the same checks I use in the Overworld, which only checks for water within the depth range of oceans to save on calculations)
This was a bug which was fixed in Beta 1.8, with the same issue affecting caves in the Nether until release 1.5:
MC-7196 Nether cave/tunnel generator produces incorrect/cut tunnels (caused by using the same common RNG, rather than a separate one for the tunnels themselves, which unpredictably changes the sequence due to an optimization which checks if a tunnel can reach the current chunk, aborting if it can't to save CPU cycles)
Notably, there are similar bugs that still exist as of the latest version (as far as I know my own mods are the only ones that fix them, or in the case of the last one, never had them):
MC-172887 Circular caves below lava level in the Nether do not align at chunk boundaries (caused by caves not generating if there is any lava in their way, including lava placed by caves themselves; I avoided this by only checking for lava above layer 15, above cave lava level but below the deepest lava seas. Also, this does not happen in older versions, including 1.6.4, the version I mod, since Nether caves didn't have lava, while I added it using the same checks I use in the Overworld, which only checks for water within the depth range of oceans to save on calculations)
Should've known I'd summon TheMasterCaver when I mentioned cave generation. That's odd. I didn't think the bug was around for that long, as I can't recall it presenting itself as commonly in the later Beta versions. My memory could just be bad. I do slightly recall reading some patch notes around the time Beta released (maybe a few updates after) that pointed out cave continuity; specifically addressing the thin, sometimes porous walls that would intersect/separate tunnels, which I talked about up there. I'd have to double check the wiki to make sure I wasn't dreaming that up, though.
--
Entry 2 - Infdev
Did some sight-seeing to see what I have to work with. My "house" is around the top left of the bottom picture. While biomes weren't officially a thing yet, it's pretty clear to that some rudimentary form of them still existed, though there isn't much more than dense forests, plains, and of course the ridiculous, often deformed mountains that everyone fondly remembers. I'm trying not to explore too much outside of my base area, as I don't want to have to venture far to find new chunks for things like the upcoming additions of redstone and dungeons.
Later on I got to experience how adorably awful the mob AI used to be. The creeper didn't pursue me like a heat-seeking missile as they do in modern Minecraft, but instead moved its head around erratically while walking in my very general direction. Below that you can see how ridiculously short the skeleton's arrow range was. They're hardly a threat in this version. Also of note is that, here, skeletons walk with their arms constantly outstretched, but do not have a bow visibly equipped. The arrows just sort of appear from their ribs.
Back inside my house, I added a room and began this 3x3 vertical mine. I usually always just do staircases to Y-11 and branch mine from there, but I wanted to do something different. This particular design always reminds me of:
the series that introduced me to the game. The "particular design" appears at 3:38 onward.
Had to put that in a spoiler because trying to text-link the YouTube video just made the entire video appear instead. Anyways,
I've built this peasant-tier farm. I will of course do something better later, but this is fine for now.
Some interesting things I discovered while building:
Grass grows back really fast. That grass you see in the top picture grew just seconds after mining away the grass block above it.
I haven't checked the wiki, but tool durability definitely seems worse across the board. In the bottom picture, this entire field I tilled (which was required, as the only way to obtain seeds as of this version was via random drops when tilling grass) went through two iron hoes, almost three, as you can see. To be fair, I went over this same area at least three times, but the same is true of pickaxes, shovels, and axes - nothing lasts as long.
I forgot stairs weren't in the game yet, so settled for half slabs when I realized the crafting recipe for stone slabs called for cobblestone instead of stone.
So, here's where my "settlement" stands as of now. It's truly hideous - almost laughable. I plan to construct something similar to what I did in my original thread, but I've been more or less focused on mining and exploring the "quirks and features" (as Doug Demuro would say) of this version. Maybe I'll start on that next time.
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I'm gonna buy a cheap bouquet before it dies on the display.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
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Hey Diab,
I'm doing a world similar to yours! I quite enjoy going back to the old versions and noticing some of the differences compared to today.
In my original thread I mentioned the Brick Pyramids, and the possibility of seeing them in the available Infdev build, but I am unable to find anything concrete pertaining to when they were removed. This website says March 27th, 2010, in my original thread I somehow came up with June 27th, 2010, and this forum post shows a user discovering one in June of 2018. Perhaps that forum user is able to run even older Infdev builds; otherwise, I can't imagine how he found that. In spite of my confidence the first time around, it seems Brick Pyramids won't be a possibility here, but there's plenty to look back on, experience, and compare to what we have now.
Brick Pyramids were indeed removed in Infdev (20100327). I've tested various versions of Infdev and can confirm I have never found one in a any version of Infdev from 20100327 onwards.
I haven't checked the wiki, but tool durability definitely seems worse across the board. In the bottom picture, this entire field I tilled (which was required, as the only way to obtain seeds as of this version was via random drops when tilling grass) went through two iron[/i] hoes, almost three, as you can see. To be fair, I went over this same area at least three times, but the same is true of pickaxes, shovels, and axes - nothing lasts as long.
This is true. The durability does not get improved until Beta 1.2.
Anyways, can't wait for more of your posts! Infdev is amazing!
I had been playing Beta 1.0 and was amazed at how much the feel of the game has changed. Though I did play Minecraft Classic when it was a thing for a hot minute, I joined well after the official release, at 1.4.2, so I missed a lot of stuff. Old Minecraft really feels much more like a zen sandbox than today's game, because there is no pressure to complete anything. Now, we have boss mobs, raids, advancements, and big generated structures which somewhat "force" us towards an end goal (even though there isn't one). Not so with pre-1.0, and I think that's why I enjoy playing it. You literally have to create your own goals - something I have always enjoyed about this game. Seems like you're doing that well here.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
LP series? Not my style! Video series? Closer, but not quite. Survival journal, maybe? That's better. Now in Season 4 of the Legends of Quintropolis Journal (<< click to view)!! World download and more can be found there.
I had been playing Beta 1.0 and was amazed at how much the feel of the game has changed. Though I did play Minecraft Classic when it was a thing for a hot minute, I joined well after the official release, at 1.4.2, so I missed a lot of stuff. Old Minecraft really feels much more like a zen sandbox than today's game, because there is no pressure to complete anything. Now, we have boss mobs, raids, advancements, and big generated structures which somewhat "force" us towards an end goal (even though there isn't one). Not so with pre-1.0, and I think that's why I enjoy playing it. You literally have to create your own goals - something I have always enjoyed about this game. Seems like you're doing that well here.
Indeed. The feel of the game is certainly different. I started playing in either August or September of 2010, so the change in "feel" has been so gradual for me that I don't quite notice it until I go back and play these old versions. I know exactly what you mean; it's certainly not forced, but you almost feel funneled in to something. I find it easy to ignore though. The way I play here is pretty much identical to the way I play modern Minecraft.
Anyways,
Entry 3 - Infdev
I've been busy. The tower looks dumb, I know, but it's supposed to be a beacon for navigation purposes, and, since there is no sneaking yet, I didn't dare to build anything more complex that high up. There's a bit to go over, so I'll start at what I've designated as the "gate," seen in the bottom left.
First up and to the right is this cave system - the first cave system I explored in this world, and one that's actually pretty extensive. I've rung it pretty dry, so at this point it's a landmark if anything.
Next up is my house. I wanted an excuse to use the signs (which, in this version, were absolute units compared to what they are now), and couldn't think of anything else, so we are left with "HOUSE." Out front is a fountain of sorts, but really it's just an easily accessible infinite water source, which came in handy when constructing the greenhouse right next to it (more on that later). Behind the fountain is a staircase leading up to the second floor entrance, with the first floor entrance being down on the left.
Here's the view from the second floor entrance. Fences didn't exist yet, so I just used half slabs in their place. That hole in the ground to my left is a ladder to go between floors, since there's no staircase inside.
Views of the second floor, and its connection to the greenhouse (the only way to access it). As you can see, it's in pretty poor shape. I can only imagine because passive mobs weren't limited to grass only when spawning.
The bottom floor is pretty empty - I'm not sure what to do with it. The staircase to my right connects to a network of tunnels underground that connect various things throughout my base. More on that later.
To the left of my home - this odd looking structure - is the entrance to my underground mushroom farm. It doubles as an entrance to the aforementioned underground network as well. Climbing down and heading to the right takes you to the mushroom farm. I actually don't know for sure if the mechanics for this even existed at the time, but I tried anyways. Doesn't matter either way, as I've already got mushroom stew out of it.
Heading down and going left instead will take you to this - the "garage." It's essentially a minecart station, although minecarts aren't ride-able yet. Eventually, other bases will connect here via rails.
That's pretty much all there is to the "underground network" portion. It's laid out like this:
Next - just outside the garage - I've added some more pathing, and off in the distance there is a dock for when I travel to and from this base via the eventual addition of boats. Curiously, this thrown-together farm fares better than the dedicated greenhouse.
Finally, the tower. It's accessed via my original base/mine. A ladder takes you to the top, where it offers a pretty nice view.
--
Here's some shots of one of the larger cave systems I've come across. This brings me to the subject of caving in general. Perhaps I just got unlucky with my world, but modern Minecraft truly spoils us. I've come across less than 5 notable (aka, deep/extensive enough to find gold/lava lakes/fountains) caves. Ore veins aren't as common, and the veins I come across aren't as fruitful. I've yet to find diamonds in a cave - I only found three, and that was in my strip mine. Strip mining is how I usually find my caves in the game. I mine at various levels (but rarely above 40) and just happen to come across them. Doing so in this world, however, has yielded very poor results. No caves, just mostly small rooms with lava lakes in them. It's disappointing, but I'll continue to strip mine until I at least find enough diamonds to have both a pickaxe and sword.
That is the point at which I will update to the next version.
I'm unsure at this point if I will go through each and every update or skip around. I'll likely do every other update, or skip two, unless I find a reason to do otherwise. In any case, the next version will be Alpha 1.0.4, the next one up in the launcher. For now, I will stick to this, but not for much longer.
This brings me to the subject of caving in general. Perhaps I just got unlucky with my world, but modern Minecraft truly spoils us. I've come across less than 5 notable (aka, deep/extensive enough to find gold/lava lakes/fountains) caves.
This may be due to the bug I mentioned before since InfDev should actually have significantly more and denser cave systems than even vanilla 1.6.4, which has cave systems nearly triple the size of 1.7 and later but half as common; overall, the relative densities are 0.4875 for InfDev, 0.325 for 1.6.4, and 0.25 for 1.7+ (in other words, InfDev has nearly twice as many caves as modern versions):
This is a cave map I found for an early Alpha version; if you look closely you can see breaks where caves cut off (this still happens to a much more limited extent in modern versions due to a couple minor bugs - an easy way to determine that a dead end is actually a dead end and not a 1-2 block thick wall dividing an otherwise continuous tunnel is that real dead ends will be only about 3 blocks in diameter):
The version of InfDev also matters since there were many changes to world generation over its development, including versions with no caves at all (and no ores or trees); Infdev_20100617-2 appears to be when "modern" caves were added (using the same generation functions for tunnels, with the only later changes being to the density and frequency of cave systems, and at a later point, increasing the diameter of the largest tunnels. The version I decompiled in the link above was 20100618):
As far as ores go, old versions had a bug which caused ore veins to be much smaller in all but the southeast quadrant (which had the intended amount, this was due to a rounding function which only correctly rounded positive coordinates), otherwise, it was the same as modern versions (aside from an increase in the size of all veins in release 1.8, and in Beta 1.8, a decrease in the maximum altitude due to reversing the direction veins generate in from their start from up to down, but this had no impact on per-layer density):
A few years ago I made this thread, wherein I began with Minecraft Infdev, and moved through the updates with each journal entry. The goal was to play all the way up until the current version, and have a large explored area above ground so you can see the changes in terrain generation as the game developed, among other things.
After getting a new laptop recently, I decided to give that another go, except a bit differently. Rather than have each entry roll over to the next version, I will play on a single version for as long as necessary until I feel I've gotten the most out of it (meaning a single version could encompass multiple entries).
Entry #1
We begin, again, with InfDev. Particularly the build released on June 18th of 2010, as the numbers in its name (provided in the launcher) would indicate. This is neither the first or last InfDev build, but it is the build that contained the very first Seecret Friday Update. In my original thread I mentioned the Brick Pyramids, and the possibility of seeing them in the available Infdev build, but I am unable to find anything concrete pertaining to when they were removed. This website says March 27th, 2010, in my original thread I somehow came up with June 27th, 2010, and this forum post shows a user discovering one in June of 2018. Perhaps that forum user is able to run even older Infdev builds; otherwise, I can't imagine how he found that. In spite of my confidence the first time around, it seems Brick Pyramids won't be a possibility here, but there's plenty to look back on, experience, and compare to what we have now.
This update (Seecret Friday Update 1, infdev061810) added the following to Minecraft:
Something very interesting about minecarts that I did not know when making my original thread: originally, minecarts could not be ridden. Instead, they were used as storage (source), with a rising amount of dirt inside the minecart indicating how full it is (example). I'm definitely gonna get my hands on that, but first, I'll need a home:
It isn't much right now, but my primary focus is on mining. There's a few interesting things to note early on.
Sorry if the flow of this post seems disjointed, it's mostly because I type the post up while I play along. Anyways, some interesting things about caves in ancient Minecraft.
A lot of cave branches end in thin corridors like this, where one side of the wall is clearly the "cave" (rugged walls) and the other appears to be almost completely flat, as if the cave tried to generate across to a neighboring chunk but couldn't for whatever reason. This reminds me a lot of running in to the world border underground in the old console versions of Minecraft, except in this case it's obviously not the world edge.
Sometimes you'll even get this:
Instances where the cave appears to end, except for a hole precisely one block large that clearly shows that the system continues. I see this just as frequently as I see the aforementioned thin/flat cave corridors. Caving overall is a very different experience to modern-day Minecraft, to no one's surprise I'm sure. Ore veins specifically are much less generous, with less blocks per vein.
A couple more shots of my short caving trip. At the top is what appears to be a "circle room," I didn't think those were implemented this far back. I took the next picture because I always favored the older lava texture.
The cave goes on and gets much larger, but I didn't feel confident going forward until I could go home and stock up. While there, I had enough iron to create this:
That...is a Minecart. Seriously, I have no idea what that is supposed to even be. It's most certainly a Minecart though, as confirmed when I placed it down. I even checked the wiki to make sure the icon actually looked like this at one point and wasn't a glitch.
And here we have it,
Minecart chest, without the chest.
It's as unexciting as it looks, but it's just so quirky I couldn't help myself. I also like the appearance. I stacked it full of dirt, and will leave it here as is. I'm curious to see what will happen to the storage once this system is removed and they are replaced with Chest minecarts.
That was my goal for this session - I might actually use these minecarts for more than just experimentation; if you check my thread for my PS3 world you'll find I'm a huge fan of rails. With that out of the way, this entry is concluded. For the next entry, I will remain in Infdev, and work on properly settling in my surrounding area.
Misc tidbits and quirks from my original thread:
which the player was looking at them.
animation.
This was a bug which was fixed in Beta 1.8, with the same issue affecting caves in the Nether until release 1.5:
MC-7196 Nether cave/tunnel generator produces incorrect/cut tunnels (caused by using the same common RNG, rather than a separate one for the tunnels themselves, which unpredictably changes the sequence due to an optimization which checks if a tunnel can reach the current chunk, aborting if it can't to save CPU cycles)
Notably, there are similar bugs that still exist as of the latest version (as far as I know my own mods are the only ones that fix them, or in the case of the last one, never had them):
MC-7200 Cave/tunnel generation may cut tunnels a bit too soon (fix included) (caused by an incorrect distance calculation in the aforementioned optimization, easily fixed)
MC-125033 Caves and ravines cut off unnaturally on chunk borders when near water (caused by the cave generator not able to see across chunk borders and the water check excluding entire segments; I changed this to be per-block and have a post-generation step that fixes water next to caves along chunk borders. This is particularly noticeable with other cave mods that produce large caves, while in TMCW they smoothly follow the contours of water)
MC-172887 Circular caves below lava level in the Nether do not align at chunk boundaries (caused by caves not generating if there is any lava in their way, including lava placed by caves themselves; I avoided this by only checking for lava above layer 15, above cave lava level but below the deepest lava seas. Also, this does not happen in older versions, including 1.6.4, the version I mod, since Nether caves didn't have lava, while I added it using the same checks I use in the Overworld, which only checks for water within the depth range of oceans to save on calculations)
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
Should've known I'd summon TheMasterCaver when I mentioned cave generation. That's odd. I didn't think the bug was around for that long, as I can't recall it presenting itself as commonly in the later Beta versions. My memory could just be bad. I do slightly recall reading some patch notes around the time Beta released (maybe a few updates after) that pointed out cave continuity; specifically addressing the thin, sometimes porous walls that would intersect/separate tunnels, which I talked about up there. I'd have to double check the wiki to make sure I wasn't dreaming that up, though.
--
Entry 2 - Infdev
Did some sight-seeing to see what I have to work with. My "house" is around the top left of the bottom picture. While biomes weren't officially a thing yet, it's pretty clear to that some rudimentary form of them still existed, though there isn't much more than dense forests, plains, and of course the ridiculous, often deformed mountains that everyone fondly remembers. I'm trying not to explore too much outside of my base area, as I don't want to have to venture far to find new chunks for things like the upcoming additions of redstone and dungeons.
Later on I got to experience how adorably awful the mob AI used to be. The creeper didn't pursue me like a heat-seeking missile as they do in modern Minecraft, but instead moved its head around erratically while walking in my very general direction. Below that you can see how ridiculously short the skeleton's arrow range was. They're hardly a threat in this version. Also of note is that, here, skeletons walk with their arms constantly outstretched, but do not have a bow visibly equipped. The arrows just sort of appear from their ribs.
Back inside my house, I added a room and began this 3x3 vertical mine. I usually always just do staircases to Y-11 and branch mine from there, but I wanted to do something different. This particular design always reminds me of:
the series that introduced me to the game. The "particular design" appears at 3:38 onward.
Had to put that in a spoiler because trying to text-link the YouTube video just made the entire video appear instead. Anyways,
I've built this peasant-tier farm. I will of course do something better later, but this is fine for now.
Some interesting things I discovered while building:
So, here's where my "settlement" stands as of now. It's truly hideous - almost laughable. I plan to construct something similar to what I did in my original thread, but I've been more or less focused on mining and exploring the "quirks and features" (as Doug Demuro would say) of this version. Maybe I'll start on that next time.
Hey Diab,
I'm doing a world similar to yours! I quite enjoy going back to the old versions and noticing some of the differences compared to today.
Brick Pyramids were indeed removed in Infdev (20100327). I've tested various versions of Infdev and can confirm I have never found one in a any version of Infdev from 20100327 onwards.
This is true. The durability does not get improved until Beta 1.2.
Anyways, can't wait for more of your posts! Infdev is amazing!
kalCM's Survival World (Infdev to Official Release) (Survival Journal)
Minecraft Youtube Let's Play Channel (Minecraft Infdev to Official Release Series)
The Minecraft Journey - Infdev to Official Release (Series 1) - This was done by me under a different Minecraft account.
The Minecraft Journey - Infdev to Official Release (Series 2) (May 2018- April 2020)
I had been playing Beta 1.0 and was amazed at how much the feel of the game has changed. Though I did play Minecraft Classic when it was a thing for a hot minute, I joined well after the official release, at 1.4.2, so I missed a lot of stuff. Old Minecraft really feels much more like a zen sandbox than today's game, because there is no pressure to complete anything. Now, we have boss mobs, raids, advancements, and big generated structures which somewhat "force" us towards an end goal (even though there isn't one). Not so with pre-1.0, and I think that's why I enjoy playing it. You literally have to create your own goals - something I have always enjoyed about this game. Seems like you're doing that well here.
LP series? Not my style! Video series? Closer, but not quite. Survival journal, maybe? That's better. Now in Season 4 of the Legends of Quintropolis Journal (<< click to view)!! World download and more can be found there.
Indeed. The feel of the game is certainly different. I started playing in either August or September of 2010, so the change in "feel" has been so gradual for me that I don't quite notice it until I go back and play these old versions. I know exactly what you mean; it's certainly not forced, but you almost feel funneled in to something. I find it easy to ignore though. The way I play here is pretty much identical to the way I play modern Minecraft.
Anyways,
Entry 3 - Infdev
I've been busy. The tower looks dumb, I know, but it's supposed to be a beacon for navigation purposes, and, since there is no sneaking yet, I didn't dare to build anything more complex that high up. There's a bit to go over, so I'll start at what I've designated as the "gate," seen in the bottom left.
First up and to the right is this cave system - the first cave system I explored in this world, and one that's actually pretty extensive. I've rung it pretty dry, so at this point it's a landmark if anything.
Next up is my house. I wanted an excuse to use the signs (which, in this version, were absolute units compared to what they are now), and couldn't think of anything else, so we are left with "HOUSE." Out front is a fountain of sorts, but really it's just an easily accessible infinite water source, which came in handy when constructing the greenhouse right next to it (more on that later). Behind the fountain is a staircase leading up to the second floor entrance, with the first floor entrance being down on the left.
Here's the view from the second floor entrance. Fences didn't exist yet, so I just used half slabs in their place. That hole in the ground to my left is a ladder to go between floors, since there's no staircase inside.
Views of the second floor, and its connection to the greenhouse (the only way to access it). As you can see, it's in pretty poor shape. I can only imagine because passive mobs weren't limited to grass only when spawning.
The bottom floor is pretty empty - I'm not sure what to do with it. The staircase to my right connects to a network of tunnels underground that connect various things throughout my base. More on that later.
To the left of my home - this odd looking structure - is the entrance to my underground mushroom farm. It doubles as an entrance to the aforementioned underground network as well. Climbing down and heading to the right takes you to the mushroom farm. I actually don't know for sure if the mechanics for this even existed at the time, but I tried anyways. Doesn't matter either way, as I've already got mushroom stew out of it.
Heading down and going left instead will take you to this - the "garage." It's essentially a minecart station, although minecarts aren't ride-able yet. Eventually, other bases will connect here via rails.
That's pretty much all there is to the "underground network" portion. It's laid out like this:
Next - just outside the garage - I've added some more pathing, and off in the distance there is a dock for when I travel to and from this base via the eventual addition of boats. Curiously, this thrown-together farm fares better than the dedicated greenhouse.
Finally, the tower. It's accessed via my original base/mine. A ladder takes you to the top, where it offers a pretty nice view.
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Here's some shots of one of the larger cave systems I've come across. This brings me to the subject of caving in general. Perhaps I just got unlucky with my world, but modern Minecraft truly spoils us. I've come across less than 5 notable (aka, deep/extensive enough to find gold/lava lakes/fountains) caves. Ore veins aren't as common, and the veins I come across aren't as fruitful. I've yet to find diamonds in a cave - I only found three, and that was in my strip mine. Strip mining is how I usually find my caves in the game. I mine at various levels (but rarely above 40) and just happen to come across them. Doing so in this world, however, has yielded very poor results. No caves, just mostly small rooms with lava lakes in them. It's disappointing, but I'll continue to strip mine until I at least find enough diamonds to have both a pickaxe and sword.
That is the point at which I will update to the next version.
I'm unsure at this point if I will go through each and every update or skip around. I'll likely do every other update, or skip two, unless I find a reason to do otherwise. In any case, the next version will be Alpha 1.0.4, the next one up in the launcher. For now, I will stick to this, but not for much longer.
This may be due to the bug I mentioned before since InfDev should actually have significantly more and denser cave systems than even vanilla 1.6.4, which has cave systems nearly triple the size of 1.7 and later but half as common; overall, the relative densities are 0.4875 for InfDev, 0.325 for 1.6.4, and 0.25 for 1.7+ (in other words, InfDev has nearly twice as many caves as modern versions):
https://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-java-edition/survival-mode/2481644-digging-straight-down-is-safer-than-i-thought?comment=11
This is a cave map I found for an early Alpha version; if you look closely you can see breaks where caves cut off (this still happens to a much more limited extent in modern versions due to a couple minor bugs - an easy way to determine that a dead end is actually a dead end and not a 1-2 block thick wall dividing an otherwise continuous tunnel is that real dead ends will be only about 3 blocks in diameter):
https://web.archive.org/web/20141003144742/http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/mapping-and-modding/minecraft-tools/1260523-cartograph-map-your-alpha
The version of InfDev also matters since there were many changes to world generation over its development, including versions with no caves at all (and no ores or trees); Infdev_20100617-2 appears to be when "modern" caves were added (using the same generation functions for tunnels, with the only later changes being to the density and frequency of cave systems, and at a later point, increasing the diameter of the largest tunnels. The version I decompiled in the link above was 20100618):
https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Java_Edition_Infdev_20100617-2#World_generation
As far as ores go, old versions had a bug which caused ore veins to be much smaller in all but the southeast quadrant (which had the intended amount, this was due to a rounding function which only correctly rounded positive coordinates), otherwise, it was the same as modern versions (aside from an increase in the size of all veins in release 1.8, and in Beta 1.8, a decrease in the maximum altitude due to reversing the direction veins generate in from their start from up to down, but this had no impact on per-layer density):
https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/21705/do-positive-coordinate-locations-give-more-ore-in-minecraft (note that the example map given seems to show more ore to the southwest, which should be southeast (+x, +z), in either case, the difference is stark - almost nothing to the northwest)
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?