Minecraft Forums

Quote from bobotheboss111111»

1. Update the console versions a lot, almost up to the same level as PC (the consoles can handle infinite worlds, the iphone 4s can, its just 4J choosing not to add them to console).

The consoles are certainly capable of infinite worlds, and I agree that they should be added; however, I don't think 4J is just "choosing" not to add them:

Quote from 4JSteve»

There are technical limitations stopping us from doing this (adding larger worlds).

Save game size is the primary issue.

Quote from PineappleWitness»

oh sweet nostalgia...

i got minecraft in early 2012, shortly before 1.2 was released. all the lets plays of the game i watched on youtube were in either alpha or beta, so i've got a lot of nostalgia from those periods although i didn't play them myself.

i did not know the signs were so big. i'll be following this best i can.

I started playing in late September of 2010. Watching X's Adventures in Minecraft is what did it for me. Performance-wise, it wasn't enjoyable - I played on a netbook, giving me 25fps w/ Tiny view distance on a good day, but it was all I had, and I loved it.

I didn't know signs were so big either. When I put them down, I laughed at how goofy it looked. Thanks for following along though!

Quote from janskydunbird»

I've been messing around with very early versions myself recently. It's fascinating to see where Minecraft came from and how it grew over time isn't it?

Have fun with the sheep spawning in your mines and caves and all over everything you own and trampling your crops now lol

Indeed it is. That is exactly what drove me to do this. One of my big goals for this is to build a ridiculously long minecart track, and, once I'm nearing the more recent updates, put the world up for download. I want people to be able to hop on that minecart track and see - just from the terrain alone, if not more - just how much has changed.

Oh, and I've experienced that quite a bit already.

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Entry #6

Version: Alpha 1.0.5_01

A relatively small update, and a small entry to match. Here's what 1.0.5_01 brought with it:

Anyways...

Using all the cobblestone I mined up while tunneling, I completed the wall outline and began building up. It's almost finished - I'll take a guess and say this will be finished with at least 3 more stacks, and, after that, I'll begin leveling the hill on which I'll build a "proper" house.

Accomplished:

• Wall outline complete, wall itself is almost done

A pretty short entry. I don't have as much playing time today as I would've liked.

Day 2 and 3

Version: Infdev

The second day is off to a great start, as, within walking distance, I spot a mountain with coal in its side. I would've been pleased with just 8 pieces, but I stumbled upon much more - 52! I was quite a distance from my home at this point, so I walked back and began my search for food, keeping close to base.

Here are some images of the land around my home. Up top is another forest. This one is east of my spawn, unlike the west forest shown during Day 1. On the bottom is a monstrous-looking mountain. I won't say that I prefer Alpha's land generation over what we have now, but I won't say it isn't pretty awesome, either.

It's past noon at this point, and just as I'm about to quit the search for food, I see a group of pigs (right beside my spawn, too. Go figure.). Moments later I return home with 5 porkchops. Note the black outline around the sprite, present all the way until 1.4.2 (full release).

After returning home, I add some furnaces, some slabs near the rear entrance (I planned on adding stairs, but they have not been added yet), created some torches, and smelted my iron/food. I used every last piece of iron to create two pickaxes, a sword, and a shovel. It's night time at this point, so with a fresh inventory, I once again travel in to the small mine that I began the previous day - with the intention of reaching bedrock.

I dig just a few blocks in to my mine...and see this. Coal. I'm a bit annoyed. Had I just dug a few more blocks in to my mine, I could've avoided a night and morning's worth of walking around just to find coal.

I continued digging quite a bit until I finally found a cave! At the moment I broke through, I turned around to take a picture, showing just how far I had to dig to find a cave. The visible iron ore enticed me, so I dug my way down.

Gold! Aside from this and a few pieces of Iron, this cave dead-ends both ways. I continued down...

...annnnd we're at bedrock. No more caves. Disappointed, I headed back up, but I'll return here later to begin my branch mine.

We're well in to the morning of Day 3 at this point, so I begin to smelt what little bit of gold and iron I had. I then, using all of my gold, made a golden sword for absolutely no reason. Clocks aren't here yet, and gold tools don't yet offer faster-than-diamond mining capabilities, so I can't think of any other reason to use it. A novelty. I then return to the bottom of my mine and begin branching out tunnels. It's rather boring, and I'm fairly certain I won't find anything, until...

Diamonds! Only two, though. Excited, I return home. You can see just how uneventful my branch mining was up until this point, only having found 3 iron ore and 4 coal.

The main double chest I had been using was starting to become full, so I made three new chests, labeling them with signs. Let me just say I was genuinely shocked at just how large the signs were! They're nearly two blocks in height, just over 1.5. They also aren't stackable and cannot be mounted on walls, annoyingly. Valuables (ores and such) to the left, and weapons, tools, food, and armor to the right. The first double chest will now only be used for raw materials/miscellaneous items.

Here I had also began digging out a large room directly behind my work area. I didn't make much progress, but this will later be a large storage room.

The sun was beginning to set at this point, and I decided to do something about the excess trees surrounding my home.

When the night set in, I began chopping down as many trees as my iron axe would allow. Up top, you see the "before" picture, and at the bottom, you see the "after" picture. Many of the trees are gone, and you also see a cobblestone outline. Later on, I will get rid of more trees, encircle my home with this cobblestone outline, and build large cobblestone walls, giving myself enough room to build a "proper" home as well as a farm and improved mine. As the sun rises, our third day ends, and so does this entry.

Accomplished on Day 2 and 3:

• Found coal
• Found food
• Improved base
• Continued in-home mine, all the way to bedrock
• Found first piece of Gold Ore
• Began tunneling out the branch mine
• Found first Diamonds
• Added more chests
• Discovered adorably large signs
• Began work on storage room
• Destroyed surrounding trees
• Began laying the outline for what will later become tall cobblestone walls

I will dedicate days 4, 5, and part of 6 to finding a Brick Pyramid. Updates to come.

__________________________________________________________

Day 4, 5, and 6

Version: Infdev

The most mundane days so far...constantly walking, in pursuit of those elusive brick pyramids. My time in Infdev is coming to an end, so, nearing the end of the sixth day, I decide to just stop, and walk back home. I don't arrive home until the dawn of the seventh and final Infdev day. While I did not find a brick pyramid, I did find some incredible terrain. I found large gravel beaches, I found what looked like Infdev's attempt at biomes (forests, huge plains, mountain ranges, loosely-connected islands, etc), and I found an abundance of those "plus signs," a popular sign of...

sigh

Accomplished on Days 4, 5, and 6:

• Sight-seeing.

______________________________________________________

Day 7

Version: Infdev

Days 4, 5, and 6 were filled with monotony. Drained from the long walk to and from, I wanted to do something productive, so I built a small farm. It's absolutely tiny. Only 12 seeds are planted currently. It's tall enough that mobs shouldn't be able to access it, exposed enough that it remains well-lit all day, and illuminated enough on the inside that the crops should still receive adequate lighting during the night. I didn't have enough iron for a bucket, so I was forced to build the farm using the ocean close to both my home and spawn. In the last picture you can see just how close it is to my home (at the far right you see a glimpse of my home's front entrance).

Using the last of my cobblestone, I created a path leading from what will soon be my "fort" to the farm. I also added a bit to the wall outline.

The sun set, and I spent the entire night mining cobblestone. Moments before the sun would rise on the eighth day, I went outside and begin building the walls. Here you can see just how much was done as daylight creeps in.

I'm pretty much out of iron at this point. In fact, I've just one ingot left. The next couple of days will no doubt have to be spent in the mines - I don't want to be reduced to cobblestone pickaxes for much longer.

Accomplished on Day 7:

• Farm built (to be honest, I didn't even know farming mechanics were present this early in development) and connected to home
• Walls extended and built

________________________________________________________________

Entry #5

Version: Alpha 1.0.4

I've made some changes to how I will go about progressing through updates. Rather than spending x amount of days in a particular version, each version will instead get one entry. The length of every entry will vary. It could span a single game day, or 10+ game days, but it will never be more than one post (excluding post #2 in this thread, since that was made before this change). After the entry is made, I'll move on to the next update, make an entry, next update, make an entry...and so on.

From Infdev, we can only go straight to Alpha 1.0.4, the fourth "Seecret Friday Update" (we started with the first) in the launcher, skipping 4 Infdev updates and 5 Alpha updates. A lot of changes and additions have been made. Here they are, in order:

Anyways...

The first thing I did was put the signs on the walls. It looks much better now (note how much smaller the signs are now, btw).

Next, I cleaned up my inventory and prepared to head in to the mine. I'm bringing a crafting bench and plenty of sticks, because, as you can see, I don't have much in the way of tools. Bringing those two things will allow me to work and craft as I go.

I branched off of my original staircase and dug another (facing south) and came across this lava bit. Assuming it was connected to a larger lava source housed in a cave, I tunneled next to it...and I was right! I found what I originally thought was just a small, isolated cavern, but venturing further led me to the most impressive cave I've seen yet. Ores, water, and lava everywhere.

While wandering around, I noticed the strangest thing...animals! These weren't the only ones - I found two more sheep and three more pigs after taking these screenshots. I looked all around for an opening to the surface, but could find none. Strange.

I continued mining until all of my pickaxes wore out. I left the cave pretty satisfied. 40 Iron, 19 Gold, and 115 Coal. The cave was pretty expansive, but there were much more tunnels than ore, so I probably won't come back to this one.

Accomplished:

• House organization
• Lots and lots of mining (needed cobblestone to complete my walls, especially)

I'm sure this has been done before, but I've always wanted to do it myself and document it.

Basically, I will begin a new Minecraft world in the oldest survival version (which I believe is listed as "inf_20100618" in the launcher). I will play 2-7 days in that version, update to the next, play 2-7 days, update again...all the way until our current, beloved 1.11.2. The significance of the update will determine how many game days I spend playing it, but never less than 2, and never more than 7.

This has been changed. Rather than spending x amount of days in a particular version, each version will instead get one entry. The length of every entry will vary. It could span a single game day, or 10+ game days, but it will never be more than one post (excluding post #2 in this thread, since that was made before this change). After the entry is made, I'll move on to the next update, make an entry, next update, make an entry...and so on.

As more and more updates come, I'll have to venture out farther (new chunks) to take advantage of things like the eventual addition of redstone, and, later, biomes, generated structures, and more. This world will end up being rather big, so I think this journal can prove interesting. I can only hope that a world started in such an old version will be able to survive the numerous level format changes. If, for whatever reason, this doesn't make it to 1.11.2, then we'll go as far as we can.

So, let's begin with Minecraft Infdev.

Dat logo. And who could forget the plethora of in-game options?

What we have here is one of the later versions of Infdev. Not the first, not the last. The string of numbers following "infdev_," as seen in the launcher, is the date of release. 20100618 is June 18th, 2010. This is the first of the "Seecret Friday" updates. Four more updates were released for Infdev, and the first Alpha version was released shortly after that. This means we won't be seeing Brick Pyramids, or anything else exclusive to early Infdev versions (like spawning with 999 Wood Planks and Glass Blocks).

Correction: We might see Brick Pyramids! Brick Pyramids were not removed until the final Infdev update: June 27th, 2010.

So, what was new to Minecraft in this update?

• Minecarts and Minecart Tracks added.
• Gravel and sand fall realistically.
• Falling off bottom of map kills the player.
• Sky rendering tweaked.

With that out of the way, I'll be starting under "World1." ...

______________________________________________________

Day 1

Version: Infdev

Oh, that endearing shade of green. I have no complaints about the spawn. There's plenty of trees. There's even a forest of decent size behind me, as the second image shows. Might as well take advantage and punch some of these trees away...

I got a few logs - just enough to make a wooden axe - and chopped as many trees as I could before it wore out. I'm left with, what I consider, more than enough wood to start off the first day. It is then that I realize that there is no sound. Over three years ago, I made a thread asking about this. After further testing, I discovered that sound actually did work below Alpha 1.2.6 - all the way down to Alpha 1.1.12_01, but below that there is nothing but silence. A trip to the Minecraft Wiki points to this (under the Trivia section):

• This is the oldest version of the game in the launcher with working sounds.
• This is because in this version, resources are downloaded from the cloud, instead of minecraft.net. Much later the then unused sound resources were removed from minecraft.net, thus causing all versions prior to Alpha 1.1.2_01 to lack sounds.
• Sounds can still be heard in prior versions through usage of a proxy debugger or modifying the game.

• This excludes indev, as versions from that development phase of the game are not available in the launcher.

Anyways...

Noon approaches, so I shift gears and focus on finding a place to stay. A short walk, north-west of my spawn, leads me to this little hole in the side of a hill. I'll simply patch up the holes with wooden planks and call it a day. There's even some coal! Now is the time to make my first pickaxe. I get to work...

...and I'm done. It's pretty cramped, and not very pleasing to the eye, but it'll get the job done for now.

Here's some interesting things to note.

1. 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.
2. Take a look at that door sprite! While significantly different compared to what we have now, rest assured that the door model itself is still the same. 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.

I needed some cobblestone now, for upgraded tools and a furnace. I mined away some of the excess dirt and stone and I'm now left with a tidier - though still pretty rough-looking - little base. In addition to a crafting table, I now have a furnace and a double chest (note that chests were equal in height to regular blocks, had a black bisecting line, and that the top of furnaces had the same texture as smooth stone).

It was starting to get dark at this point, so I began looking for things to do to keep me busy until the sun rises, at which point I would have to start stocking up on food.

I began digging a mine inside of my house, but I hadn't enough torches. While I did find coal earlier, it was only two pieces - barely enough to illuminate my home. I didn't want to dig tunnels - not without an adequate supply of torches, at least. I decided to go outside and take my chances on finding an exposed cave.

That didn't take long. About 20 blocks south of my home there was this tiny, unassuming cave. Nothing special, though I did find iron (5 iron ore!). While exciting, I can't really do anything with this until I find coal, and I don't want to keep placing and picking up my single torch all night, so coal becomes my main objective.

Upon exiting the cave, a zombie caught me off-guard and totally destroyed me. Thankfully, my home, and thus the cave in which I died, was easy to find from my spawn.

Continuing, west from my base, I found this little pit. I thought it was promising. It's at least a 20-block drop, straight down. I figured it must expose some ores, or, at least, another cave branch; however, aside from a few pieces of iron, and some gravel...a dead end.

I walked south to a little hill that housed the opening of a cave, and it was here that I noticed...the sun was coming up. My first day had ended, and so began my second.

Accomplished on Day 1:

• Obtained a decent amount of wood
• Built a home (more like modified a hillside, but it's whatever)
• Found coal (though not enough)
• Found iron
• Died

I usually dig 1x2 tunnels (two blocks between each tunnel) at near-bedrock level, and there are "stations" spread throughout with chests/furnaces/benches so I can drop off the junk or make more tools.

The caves I run in to down here, though rare, are usually appreciable in size, enough so that rarer ores are easily spotted. I don't typically mine above the redstone/diamond level, unless the cave/underground structure I'm clearing runs up far enough.

I've had the most success using this method - much more than the 3x3 tunnels (at varying levels) and ridiculous quarries I used to dig.

Okay...?

Quote from DevannB»

Save game size is a trivial issue! It should be up to the consumer (users) as to how their memory is allocated. If they don't want huge worlds, THEN DON'T VENTURE OFF. Upgrade your hard drives. Do literally anything. It's not like Minecraft Worlds are really that bad in size when in comparison entire games are going beyond the scope of 50 gbs a POP!

Quote from GodlyElm22»

To answer your question regarding why it hasn't been done is simply because the studio more than likely wants to move on to next gen, like many other companies have done or want to do. Now I really don't know much technical stuff so I could be wrong and it honestly could come down to hardware limitations but from what I've read what I said above seems more plausible.

I just can't get behind the idea of it being a hardware limitation when 4JSteve pointed only to file size limits:

Quote from 4JSteve»

There are technical limitations stopping us from doing this (adding larger worlds).

Save game size is the primary issue.

If hardware were an issue, I believe it'd be higher up on the list than save game size.

I wouldn't expect to run extreme graphics mods, but you will be fine with that CPU.

Been a while since I've updated this.

For the time being, I stopped playing on the world I've been posting about here and have gone back to my first [PS3] world (almost 3 years old at this point).

Before I get in to that, something rather bad happened in my newer world, particularly with my walled-in NPC village mentioned above. It seems I was mistaken in my belief that just because I'm deep underground, hostile mobs will not spawn on the surface and terrorize my village. It took me a few days, but I began to notice a steady decrease - and eventual disappearance - of villager noises. This prompted me to search all around, and, sure enough, every single villager was gone.

I had no reason to stay there anymore, so I left. I removed all of the villages' lights as a sort-of memorial - life was not here:

I moved to far-east side of the map, and built a pretty neat fort. It's not complete yet, so I won't go in to much detail:

Also, interestingly enough, while crossing the map to take these pictures, I came across this:

A fire. One that was more widespread than the picture reveals. This forest is in the bottom-most center of the map - the halfway point between the lifeless village and my new fort - and I rarely come down here. In addition, there are no lava lakes in the area. I'm guessing it's either a very strange bug, or a lava lake obscured by over-hanging dirt.

____

That's all there is to say about that world. Now, in my next post I'll be giving a tour of my first PS3 world that I will be playing on for a while. It's built-up quite a bit, and reflects our (there were 3 of us on it at its peak) inexperience and ambitions. I think it'll be worth showing off.

You shouldn't have any problems. Emphasis on shouldn't. I've never had that many persistent mobs on my worlds, so I can't say for sure. Best of luck though.

1. I've only had worlds corrupt if my console was turned off while saving, and only one at that. Some updates bring new bugs that corrupt worlds, but I have not experienced any on the three console versions I've played (360, PS3, PS4).
2. You may have some performance dips if all 75 mobs are close together/in your field of view, but I do not think anything bad will happen. The limit exists to prevent exactly that, among other things.

If it was intentional, my guess is that it's to save on bandwidth.

The longest I've played on a world, with hiatuses here and there, was about 4-5 years. It was an Alpha world from just before the 2010 Halloween update, and the last time I loaded it up was September of last year. It now sits, stored away in a drawer of hard drives.

The runner-up is my PS3 world. I've had it since the game released (December 2013) and still load it up every now and then, if my brother wants to play (since it was originally our multiplayer world).

Now, I've been on a new-ish PS3 world for a few months.

Let's pretend for a second that the game has PC-sized worlds.

You have just 200MB of space left on your PS3's drive. Eventually, you explore and manipulate the world so much that you eat up all 200MB (or close to it, I dunno if the system will actually allow the hard drive to reach 0B). What happens then? There's no space left. Does the world just...stop generating? A void? Does the game crash? If so, what happens to your save? Does it corrupt? And so on.

Things like this are why I imagine the size limits exist. I know this doesn't answer the question "well, why can't the PS3 match PS4 world sizes at least?" Someone from 4J will have to answer that. After talking it over with other users, my guess is that last-gen versions handle chunk-loading in such a way that increasing world size would be a time/money-sink and/or tremendous pain.