I agree that any bosses need to be more interesting than that. As far as ride-able dragons I don't see a problem, in fact I suspect Notch has at least considered this idea when he added the dragon egg. As far as a red dragon in the over world... The reason the Ender Dragon could pass through blocks was because free flight on wide arcs is really complicated to program. Mobs just have very simple navigation processes.The Ender Dragon passing through walls works because it makes the boss harder, more interesting and alien. But a Red Dragon is more traditional and much less likely to warp through walls.
That's funny, I was just thinking about this the other day. I'm noticing that people seem to be hung up on the idea of how to 'fold' the world, but you really don't need to do that at all. simply program the game to have a map size limit and connect the chuck edges and corners with the mirror side. Tiling if you will. Obviously this wouldn't replace the full sized world either, just be a world option, like Superflat and Large Biomes.
Obviously there would be some necessarily changes needed. Seeds would react differently because they have a cut off and because there needs to be some kind of smooth transition at the edges. Also the nether would have to have similar changes done and the portals would need addendum to account for the 1:8 distance ratio.
An additional fun thing that could be done is accurate Biomes according to equator and the poles. An issue that's been bothering me for some time is the way deserts sometimes bump against tundra and the like. That however is a very different topic. This would simply have the intended purpose of a small map and more controlled biomes placement.
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Obviously there would be some necessarily changes needed. Seeds would react differently because they have a cut off and because there needs to be some kind of smooth transition at the edges. Also the nether would have to have similar changes done and the portals would need addendum to account for the 1:8 distance ratio.
An additional fun thing that could be done is accurate Biomes according to equator and the poles. An issue that's been bothering me for some time is the way deserts sometimes bump against tundra and the like. That however is a very different topic. This would simply have the intended purpose of a small map and more controlled biomes placement.