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The Yellow flower (is this called the dandelion now, or was that the old name?) itself is far more common than even the the Red flower (likewise, poppy now?). I always notice I'm composting stacks and stacks of those compared to any other flower. And my stats in my two hardcore worlds both have this Yellow flower as one my highest mined blocks. The lily of the valley and White tulips are rare for flowers, yes, but I gathered all of those as I came across them during my explorations (either in flower forests for tulips, or a patch of lily of the valley in regular forest). See, all that early exploring it did have a purpose, haha.

In my "second long term world" and my original hardcore world, I definitely had to make numerous trips after the fact just to gather tulips though. But here, gathering so much of them ahead of time, and then having a smaller village, gave me way more than enough.

Quote from Zeno410»

Your pictures are great, but it's even better when you discuss them.

Thank you.

That's why I always try to do more than just picture only updates, but the exploring ones sometimes consist of "I was exploring and found this" and I feel sometimes a picture (or series of them) can speak for itself.

But that's why I do them almost never, and even when I do, I still give a broad description of things.

I tend to like my pictures complimenting what I'm saying (and vice versa) rather than relying too much on one or the other.

Quote from Zeno410»

Out of curiosity, how are you getting so many matched not-red-or-yellow flowers?

What does this mean?

If you mean the flowers around the village, I plant all those manually. They are all lily of the valley (if planted) or White tulips (if in pots).

I also tend to gather a lot of the wild flowers around my village, and there's two reasons for this.

The first is for bonemeal early on.

The second is to make the landscape less visually noisy, if that makes sense.

Quote from Zeno410»

Think you'll ever get Hero of the Village?

Mayyybe...

But I'm not sure if I'd want to do it my home village, especially one so small like this. And the ravagers trample leaves (and probably crops).

Given how slow and methodical I'd probably take it, my small village size would make it especially prone to being wiped out I think.

I've never even done this yet in my other hardcore world (I'm more likely to try it there if anything, and again probably not in my home village), and remember, I've put totems of undying off limits in this world, so there would be even less reason to do it other than for the sake of it (like for all the times they patrolled here before?).

There's still that pillager outpost at spawn too.

Small update after the last few being larger, and I was going to wait until I had one more thing done, but that will be next time.

Back at my village (uh... any suggestions for a name?) after exploring, my overall goal for the short term was to see how the villagers were taking to things, and see if adjustments would be needed. Would I get villagers taking to all profession spots? Would I get golems? Would the villagers do something unforeseen? Who knows.

I started by farming wheat, and getting ready to tend to the cows.



Rainy mood, always when farming haha.

I was actually getting low on meat, and since I'm (trying to) keep the clutter to a minimum in this world, I had also composted a lot of food types I'd probably never use quite a while ago (which was beneficial for the bonemeal anyway). But I still had some carrots (including golden carrots), apples, and of course wheat itself for bread, so I was at no risk of starving or anything until then.

But I just bred them, so I would need to wait for all the little ones to grow up first.

The next day, I started doing some checking around the village to get a check on things.



I see the barrel in the livestock yards was taken to. That's good. While I also haven't checked all of the smokers serving as stoves of sorts in the homes, that otherwise means all profession sites outside except one have been claimed now.

I went in one house and saw a pair of little ones, so they were still populating so far. One of the two smokers was claimed (maybe the other was and the villager was face to face with the wall on the other side?).



Come evening, I got my first minor excitement milestone... the first golem.



Initially I was watching to see if they would still populate, and at least this one suggested that they might be done.



But they did immediately populate with a second golem to make up for it, I suppose.



The next morning, I saw again something that I had seen before...



This villager seems to not be routing safely to a bed at night. I often find him further than this. Imagine him being further up the hill, behind where the leave particles are falling under that tree. I also did, by the way, grow a large oak approximately in that spot (well after this point in playing though), but never got it pictured.

Once day set in and they were heading to their professions, I saw it... the last outdoors profession was claimed!



This gives me good coverage of where the village proper is, now. I still have the temporary beds up, and if I see they fail to populate more, I'll begin removing them. Now I just need to hope I get some more golems, and that at least most of the villagers make it indoors to beds each night.

Also, this is more for clarity and disclosure rather than something that is important on it's own, but I've raised my render distance again (to 32). While I don't actually have a strict "I have to stay at a given render distance" rule, it was sort of one I was following anyway. The idea is that I have to more or less stay at a render distance I'm playing at, and not just raise it way up to prevent myself from having to explore to find stuff. And I've been following that rule. But I've found a render distance of 32 isn't really performing any worse, at least in areas where terrain is already generated and only needs to load, so I'll be playing here "nominally". If I go to explore I might turn it back down to 24 to encourage exploration a bit more. So if anything I might be doing the opposite of what I'm trying to avoid, and that is turning it down when exploring.

Moving on...

I can't remember why I was at the village I sourced my own villagers from. But regardless of why, I did notice this fire...



Which had me thinking it was a ruined portal I had never checked? That would be interesting if I did miss it, since I should have seen it here (the very first picture before any of the post in the update is the same "valley" you see pictured here, just more to the right and I'm actually up on that plateau to the right).

So I check it out and find out I indeed never looted it.





The next day, back in my village, I notice for the second time a villager with no profession, and he was standing idle. Since I've noticed most profession sits claimed, I decide to formally give one last check and see that all are claimed (including both smokers of both houses), so I decide to start taking down the temporary beds. This means I have ten villagers and ten beds (and nine profession blocks), but this is actually sixteen beds with the temporary ones, so... if they were failing to populate beyond ten, what gives? How are they not detecting six of the ten beds? Remember, initially they wouldn't populate beyond four so that matches, but surely they should by now? They're taking to profession blocks right near them. I don't think (?) there's any invalidating any of these beds? I might have to investigate this later, but for now I remove the temporary beds.

Well...



I said nine profession blocks in my village and that's true... not counting the inaccessible cartographer table in the basement, nor the storage barrels he's taking an interest to, haha. If he wants to claim it, he can. He doesn't, though. I flip the trapdoors to see if he does but that actually causes him to wander off. Strange one.

I notice I'm up to three golems now, but I'd like something closer to five or even six (at a minimum). I want a village that would be safer to being self sustaining, so I consider adding another house in the village (this is the thing i was going to wait on finishing before the update).

I decide to do this, and here is where the house will go.



I didn't get a picture of it, but I extend to terrain a bit beyond the path, and then extend the path itself, so the spot is ready.

I can't remember what led me up here, but I found this vantage point overlooking the bridge neat.



And I also took notice of a couple caves, of which I do want to explore soon.



I decided before I started working on the house, which would probably need another run to spawn for mud (I have a fair amount but probably not enough for a hole house, so at least I won't need to spend much time getting a lot), that I would add the supports to the bridge. This is because I would want to test builds in a creative world so before switching over to another world, I did this first.



Seeing underwater at lower depths proved difficulty (especially playing mid-day in real life where there's more ambient light), so I turned the shaders off while doing that part. I could have adjusted the shader settings but I had them how I like them normally, so it was faster to turn them off for a moment.

That's where I left off for now. I don't want to grow the village too large, but it looks like I'll be adding another house next.

Quote from TheMasterCaver»

Or why can't they improve their AI so they avoid water

Ideally, yes. But since they don't do that, I was wondering why they made it to where water damage them if they just end up naturally dying over time. If a mob is consistently failing to be self sustaining, it's flawed in my eyes.

I've seen a bat fly into lava too (I got a screenshot of this so it still happens in 1.20) but I don't think I mind that one.

The bees though... sad. And to be fair it's been 1.16 since I last could speak of this since that was the version I was on with my village in that world, and I have probably over half a dozen beehives with 2 to 3 bees to each and... there's zero bees around now. It's either the water or the campfires in the chimneys (which I put chains over to try and prevent them from going down but I'm not positive if it does).

In my 1.19/1.20 world I still see the bees... but I'm up on a plateau away from any water (besides farms). And they do still wander far enough away and then unload themselves. There should be a distance beyond any home beehive that they will prioritize less and less from going further.

Made me sad to add the ambiance by bringing them to my village and then they... poof. At least the birds sit in trees and live. Worst I've had happen with birds was funny enough what I presume was a bee pushing it off the branch and having to get it back up there, haha.

I can agree with some of those things.

The subject of balance is its own separate thing, but I'm one of the odd ones who likes some of the things people are complaining about with the way the game is going by slowing down the early game and becoming more of a slow burn, while still offering ways to reduce grind later. Too many people want instant gratification from survival.

But I was mostly saying that Mojang trying to broaden their appeal, and the influx of kids, happened very early and isn't just some recent thing.

The stuff about sharks I didn't know about, but I heard fireflies weren't added for a similar reason and it made me sad.

Meanwhile, bees are added partly for awareness (I think?) and yet they just... always end up committing suicide to water I guess? Why make them die to water if the AI can't avoid it? I put all the effort into getting beehives to my village and at first they fly around, doing their job of giving ambiance... and over time, they just disappear. And then I'm sad. I like a lot of the stuff that gets added partly or largely for variety and ambiance (like llamas, parrots, bears, etc.).

Oh, and I absolutely agree with the last part. Funny thing is I was originally going to type an example of how a process being required to redye something wouldn't be too much to ask, and then you say it. But I'm also not really put off by the fact that it can be freely done. I'd rather have it there, in any capacity, than not at all.

This will be another mostly "picture update" as there's not much to say (though I'll say what little there is to be said first).

This is from a couple/few sessions where I went exploring to map out some of the remaining map. So most of it is just "I just found this thing I'm picturing" or "I'm finding this spot pretty". I actually cut out about half of the pictures (most from the earliest session so you'll notice a jump in the mapping progress fast).

Here's what I'll add about this adventure itself.

First, and perhaps worst, no Red bird! And more than that, the jungles appear to have ended. I'm sure there's a red bird in the jungles I've mapped. But I didn't come across one. I did end up getting another bird, but I'm still missing a Red one.

Continuing the above thought, it seems I won't have desert or mesa included anywhere on the map (unconfirmed as I have four maps left, but it's looking like the warm area to the North would require a row of maps up there to have that).

The North is mostly jungle and then ocean, and the South is temperate turning very cold.

Namely, that island I showed with a jungle? I think my next "house away from home" will be either building there, or possible somewhere in the very cold region. I know I eventually want to build in both. The pictures might explain why for the latter especially.

There's one image with a cave entrance and a torch inside. What that is about is its the spot I went and found the cave spawner in an earlier update. So the two villages in the plains/mountainous area around there are ones I've been to before (and the two very close ones with a video where I can easily see both standing between them), but had yet to map.

That being said, here's the map now, and then the pictures of the exploration itself.



Progress was mostly North to South.

After the exploration (not pictured and will be future updates), I'm back at the village as I try and progress its growth. So far it's going well and they are populating more, and taking to new professions at different spots in the village. I saw my first cat, but am still waiting on golems. Hopefully once I remove the temporary beds, they take to the actual ones and things don't implode, haha. I might end up with slightly more villagers than beds or profession openings but that would be fine.

Quote from ScotsMiser»

There does seem to be a change in the target audience. As much as it can be said to have had a target demographic, early MC seems aimed at the 15-30 gamer/computer 'nerd' whereas recent updates appear more interested in capturing the casual kids market.

Not to necessarily disagree because this trend is true. The game has always tried to broaden its appeal for wider reach. That's what tends to happen. But it was also true back then.

I remember people saying things like "the game is pandering to kids" in like 2013 and 2014 too, so it's not just a modern thing. The game was already on Xbox and swarming the attention of what were then preteens back in the early 2010s. I (who was already an adult back then) can't go to older Minecraft videos and see comments about the video anymore; it's all about younger people commenting on how it was their childhood at the time. To me, I don't hold that same specialization over it because it was just a video ten years ago, and it's still the same video today. Nostalgia and childhood are a heck of a thing (and I instead had my own things that were part of mine, so I know it all too well). Anyway, that group of people definitely seems to be a "not insignificant" part of the Minecraft population, so the kids were already there way back then too.

Of course the appeal has only grown since then.

Consider that when When Notch originally started it, it was as a sole developer as a personal project. The game was only on PC too, which itself is a big difference. It was not yet on consoles, nor on mobile devices (which themselves hadn't yet become what they are today, and this itself is a big change for things in the last ten years), let alone as it is today like Bedrock is, which for all of its problems is a far cry from the state it was back in on mobile in the early 2010s.

Quote from ScotsMiser»

[Things like freely re-dyeable blocks remove an element of planning that was often considered a critical part of the 'feel' of MC.]

This is one I do disagree on though. I remember trying to dye already dyed stuff in the past and being surprised I couldn't. It felt like something that maybe should have been there. This was a big quality of life change for me and I'm glad it finally happened.

"This is how things were originally" does not necessarily equal "this is how things should be".

Oh, I see what you mean now, and I forgot but I meant to mention you could use a picture example if you wanted.

I guess I'm indifferent. I like what your picture has, but I don't really mind what the game does either.

Quote from Zeno410»

No spawning in *block* light above zero. Same as the night mobs at night.

That sort of falls under the "too easy to secure an area against them" but it's probably the most practical solution despite that, yeah.

They should perhaps need sky access to spawn as well, to prevent them from spawning in "structures" or above sea level "caves" (but I only saw this once).

Quote from Zeno410»

It's a matter of opinion whether dangerous things like pillager patrols should routinely spawn almost everywhere in daytime. But what's absolutely wrong is that they can spawn *inside your secure base*, and in daytime even.

I'm not necessarily saying I find the current behavior perfect. I'm just saying I understand what Mojang was going for (a mob group that patrols during the day), and I'm saying I don't mind that idea. I think there's room for that in the game. It's merely the concept I'm saying I don't mind; I'm not defending the execution. It should be pretty apparent I'm a bit over how often they were spawning.

But the game doesn't have a way to know "this area is secure". To the game, it's just an area that's valid if it's not a village. It's only a secure place to us, and because we say it is.

So how do you keep the intended behavior without just banishing them to the night? If you make certain blocks designate an area as invalid for them, then it just seems too easy to prevent them from spawning? That is probably the most practical solution to this though, I guess?

Quote from Zeno410»

The problem is not rivers forming steep plunging canyons in mountainous terrain. The problem is steep plunging canyons in low flattish terrains. They look like they're going through mountains even when they're not.

I'll admit, you lost me here I think.

If the terrain is low, then the river is just there.

If the terrain is high, you say that's not what you're referring to.

Are you instead referring to like mid level terrain, like that spot where I built the bridge? If so, I don't particularly mind rivers doing that either. I don't think rivers should have landmasses that only sea level or only high plateaus with no in-between. Why should that in particular be excluded if higher terrain isn't?

If you're talking about something else then yeah I am lost.

For the wheat farms, do you mean collectively, or individually?

The one i wanted to make originally, before I planned on making two, would have been one I made in another world and it was larger. But I don't think it's more than these two together.

In my oldest world, I wanted to make a "farm only" location that would be a massive farm. Of course it wouldn't grow while I was away, but the idea was more for its own sake, and in function, I would go there, and it would be so large I'd get more than I need, so I wouldn't need it growing constantly. I never did that, and the direction I was going to make it in relation to my main location has not changed a lot since I purged the world when updating to 1.19.

As for the pillagers, I think the idea is you would run into them during the day, which I don't mind. I think I'd actually rather have it that way than it happen at night when mobs are out. The problem is, it seems to happen far too frequently if you stay in one spot for too long. On the other hand, you seldom see them when exploring. I don't know if they actually still spawn and I just don't notice them, or if there's something to them spawning only if you're in a given area for a while first.

In my oldest world again, my "home" is a series of tunnels in a mountain. I've been idle in there next to my bed, turned to look beyond my room into the next, and there was one standing there locked onto me (but far enough away that it wasn't attacking or chasing). It let me know my own mountain "base", even inside, is not safe.

As for the rivers cutting through higher terrain, I really like that it can do that and I would be sad if I never saw it. We never really had it before so I like that it can happen now.

It can at least be traded to clerics for emeralds. It's not much of a use, but it's there.

Poisonous potatoes, on the other hand, I think have no use (can you even compost them?).

Further progress on the village, and all of the in-between side things that entails, is the schedule. For all that exploring I did early, I similarly show I can get a lot of progress on getting something built when I went to.

Again, rather picture heavy, and this update comprises of more sessions so make that double.

I start by finishing flattening the area to the North of my house. Of course, I expose that little gap in the surface upon doing so.







While I see lava, that's not quite at that lowest layer lava would generate (it's too high), but it's still rather deep.

While I'm not wanting to sidetrack from building too much with saving, I do decide to peek in and see if there's much to it.

As my pickaxe is getting low on durability, I craft another. You can see I go through quite a lot and am running rather low on diamond, and without mending, it will require me to make regular runs for resources.



I'll be therefore having to do that soon.

For now, I drop into the chasm. To the South (where I saw the lava), there's not much to it. It basically just drops to that lava, although I didn't go all the way down to check what was at the absolute bottom. But there were no caves otherwise.

It did lead to one on the North though, with a guard waiting for me.



It branches down and to the left, and then turns from this chasm into proper caves. I don't end up going into them for the aforementioned reason, though. So I work my way back to the surface, and fill this opening. I still accomplished lighting it up to prevent random spawning right under this part of the village, and I got a bit of coal from it too.

There's plenty of openings surrounding my village and not doubt there's connections to what I saw from those, so I don't feel bad covering it.



I don't remember if I mentioned in my last post if I was settled on this or if it was still a thought at that point, but I decided to indeed put a second wheat farm in this spot. And for that, let alone the final house I'll want to build beyond it, I am going to need more mud stone.



Guess who's going on another adventure back near spawn?

One the way out though, I decide to feed the cows.





Then I make one of my many trips back towards spawn. I feel like having deja vu.



After gather many stacks, I head back home, and it's nice to have a place I can call that. Exploring is fun, and being nomadic was tolerable, but I've always felt better with a firm settlement to call home.

On the way back, I took in the scenery. I love the expansive plains between ridges of plateaus, forming valleys with winding rivers, that new terrain generation can provide.



On my way in, I grab in some wheat for the mud I brought in. That wheat is serving double purpose now.



I then do something classic and something I seldom do and set up a temporary infinite water source, to prevent myself from having to craft numerous buckets or having to run and forth between my village and the nearest water source to supply to farm with.



The sky tends to know when I'm making a farm and wants to help, I guess...





I'll be needing seeds for the new farm, so I figure this is as good a time as any to farm the existing wheat farm to get some.



Besides the little bit of planted seeds you can see pictured, this is approximately what I get from one farming of one of the farms this size.



This will lessen once I get villagers here, but that's fine. The two farms should be well more than enough. I replant it to conclude the day, and then prepare to plant them in the new, still unfinished, one too.



Upon doing so, I noticed a pair of trees I was waiting on had grown. Only, they gave me the little ones again. Cute... but insufficient. While I had enough mud for now, I needed more logs and fences for this farm.

And as though to taunt me for finding it a noteworthy thing to capture and mention, it gave me another...





*sigh*

Worse, my small and original farm was increasingly being overrun by our favorite visitors.



I do intend to take that farm down, by the way. Perhaps it's cursed.

Nothing comes of it, and they head on their way. Still, the thought of them parading down my main street!? Unacceptable!

I finally get the needed wood, and put the finishing decorative touches on the farm, as well as the terrain beyond it. It put a tree there to break up the emptiness on the horizon, and fill in the flat land with grass. Go ahead and try and claim this farm, try it!



Before working on the next addition, I decide to get at least a minimal amount of resources (read as, diamonds) for tools I'll need. So, I head back towards my branch mines. One day... one day I'll have a bridge somewhere around here and won't have scale down a small cliff, across a river, and then up the other side each time.



My luck isn't as great as the first couple of times, but it's not too awful. Namely, the low amount I encounter while actually branch mining is made up for when i come across a cave and, just in a small area, almost triple my amount. I had three or four (I think four) from branch mining, but was now leaving with eleven, largely thanks to the seven I found here. The funny part is this wasn't exposed, and by chance I removed a single block to clear the way more cleanly and it uncovered one, which was seven in total. I found another lone one initially, giving the eleven.



I had gone through almost a pickaxe worth to this point, so I found this sufficient for now. I was out of torches anyway.

I headed back and did some more "terrain decorating", which in this case was extending the main path up the land, making it easier to get out of the village and into the surrounding area, and planed a tree alongside the path.



It's at this point that I move some more birds (or maybe this is when I stated at all) from in my house to some of the cherry trees around the village. One remains so far in my house.





The above shows one of the birds moved to the newest tree, as well as the new farm now being ready for picking. It's at this point I make my "auto composter".



This is for speeding up composting extra seeds from the farms (I use a lot of bone meal for decorating the terrain, between planting grass and trying to force grow large oaks on occasion). I don't see this as a "farm" construction since it's not really generating anything for me, but just speeding up standing in front of composter and holding a button for minutes on end.

I unfortunately don't have many in progress pictures of the next project, but I decide to use the generous supply of cherry logs to go and build a bridge over that river between the nearest neighboring village and my own. I know I want to incorporate the cherry logs, cherry planks, and use deep slate for accent and trim. largely because I have the most supply of both and don't plan to use much in my actual village, but also because I I think that combination might look well enough.

This will also be the first time I have built anything with cherry wood, believe it or not.

Again, not pictures of the progress, but here it is when finished, along with some friends who showed up to celebrate the completion of the linking of the villages.



This is the same rough design I used for my nether bridges in my other hardcore world. I thought of instead mimicking another bridge I built in another world... but that would have been way more time, work, and resources. And given the smaller gap I had to cover, it might not have looked as good.

It's worth noting I do plan to possibly to add two supporting pillars extending down to the river (which will make the current low amount of deepslate stone used seem slightly less out of place), but for the initial completion, this is what I went with.

While checking the wandering trader out (remember, I can trade with these), I saw he was offering glowstone. So I made use of the new bridge by running back to my village for my emeralds (all found from looting structures), and exhausted him of the five he would trade me. He sounded very happy, but I probably was more so. Of course, I'll still need to go to the nether eventually, and I'll undoubtedly find more. These will be for backing the map. But he had them for now, so I wanted to trade for them.



I then took down the small farm near my house, and rerouted the paths in that area. Up went another tree, and I started prepping the land for where the final house would be. In doing so, I noticed two openings went to the same cave, so I was able to cover one. I decided to explore the other a bit, namely because I needed more iron (both for lanterns, as well as the maps I'd want to make to finish the one on the wall).



It continued to be narrow and winding down, so I followed it.







At one point, it starting winding back up, so I was careful for surprise creepers around here.



Such as this. This is not what I would want falling on me. I notice wherever this winds back up to also opens to the surface somewhere near my village.



At one point, it gets down to deep slate and opens into some caves, and I hear a distinct zombies. Could it be...



I consider luring it back up to the surface, and do so for a bit, but it proves difficult with how many diagonal jumps are required. And I don't have splash potions of weakness (and am undecided on if I want to allow that, even though it doesn't go against the original purpose of the no potion limitation). Since the bridge is done, I decide to just forgo the idea. I am far from having enough iron for a railway to link the villages to bring villagers to mind, but maybe I could use boats instead?

Once I have a bit of iron, I make my way out. I did come across a massive swiss cheese style room that makes me love mining at deep slate layers so much, but that's for the future.

On the surface, I go to begin on the last house, but notice my farms are ready and choose to do those first. Part to boost my wheat supply, and part to get more seeds to compost for bone meal.



I take a break to experiment in a fresh creative world on how to build the house, come up with something I like, check the dimensions, and find it's perfect. So I start building that in the actual world here. I'll probably need to make one final trip to spawn, but I have enough mud stone to start the foot print of it at least.



I then decide to make that trip to spawn, and... notice this?



That was a long time ago I saw this wandering trader here. And I've been through here a lot since then. Surely he should have despawned by then. I wonder if another one simply showed up in almost the same spot. Seems coincidental, but I figure that has to be it.

More scenery pictures, first on the way there...



And now on the way back (I skipped the third repeat picture of the mangrove swamp at spawn; too much deja vu haha).



Wide plains, valleys, and wide navigable (enough) rivers. You can't beat it.

I get back to my village, which I am now realizing is increasingly in need of a name, and finish the final house.







Like the other house, I went with four beds. This makes ten total, and there's nine job site blocks too, so it's a fair match. I hope that's enough for the villagers to populate enough, be spread enough, and spawn enough golems.

I then make yet another trip to my branch mines for more diamonds, and only have one picture of that, or a massive swiss cheese style cave I came across, but was not willing to venture into. But I did some of my first, deep level caving in this world before coming across it.



Somewhere between my village and the bridge I made, I noticed this. I knew this opening was here, but never really looked into it. I see it goes down to deep slate level and opens into a large cavern of its own. Those are my favorite. Openings directly to the surface that are large enough and go straight to a deep and large cavern. I'll be wanting to explore down there for sure eventually.



My next desire, with the village being done enough, was to get villagers here. I was too low on iron to make it feasible. And boats can't seemingly go up water flowing down anymore. But another idea I found searching the web proved useful, and that was a piston with a lever. Given the terraforming I did between my village and the bridge, there was really only four spots and times I needed to go up, so it was rather simple.

In doing so... we have our first settler.



Oddly, he was still a farmer, but not linked to anything in this village. He wandered around a smoker and that was it. Hm. maybe time would sort this out. I needed a second villager now, anyway, so I went off to do that.

This one had no profession originally and beelined straight for a composter.

Yes... yes! Come on! You can do it! (I was strangely excited watching this part.)



I have a second settler! And while he is a farmer, I did give both a dozen bread each to boost the start of things.



I checked on the other one where I last saw him, and while he was still wandering around in the same spot... he had taken to a new profession. Success.



As the sun was setting, I decided to observe them and see if they took to the bells.



And more importantly, or if they would start populating the village...





Moment of truth?



Yes, indeed. We have our first born native.

He quickly made me aware of a "flaw" in my house. He would fall from the second story down to the first, hurting himself. I had to do this, at least temporarily, but it might need to be permanent.



It's not desired, but also not too detracting.

Soon, we had another, and they seemed to get along well.



One decided to take after one of the parents and become a farmer.





I checked on the non-farmer and saw this.



His profession block, the smoker, is immediately opposite the wall. But he refuses to go inside, perhaps due to distance.

I've seen this often, and along with above example of them falling on their own off stairs, it exposes how much current village AI could use some improvement. Anything more than tiny houses rather close to everything seems to increasingly trip them up. This is not a large village by any means; to the contrary it is small, but the houses are medium sized and spread apart, with farms filling the gaps. I love the rural feel, but this one is getting tripped up.

I consider putting another porch and connection to the path in that side window nearest to the path... but for now I won't. I don't like adjusting things all the time to accommodate the drawbacks of villager AI. As long as he exists and contributes towards the population, I'll be fine with it if this only happens to one or two.

I also notice I'm "missing" one. I find out I last saw him as a child near the farm and livestock yard. I go around there and hear him... to realize he had made his way inside with the cows.

The only way this seems possible is if he ran through the block and a half tall gap as a child, and grew up inside. Funny. So I let him out.

But I notice a more pressing issue. Despite ten beds, they aren't populating beyond four. It says they should detect beds up to 48 blocks away when attempting to breed, and they should therefore be detecting way more than four. I could wait it out, but I decide to speed it up manually by just placing some random beds around near the square, and then later removing it, and seeing it they resort to detecting the actual ones later.

I need more wool, so I head out and get some. I get more scenery pictures in the process.





Success... for now. They are breeding again, but will their AI behavior throw another curve ball later?



One more day later, and we're up to half a dozen now. I catch the two little ones running throw the wheat fields, which I find cute.





One grows up and takes to composter three of four. That's good, as it expands my village this way, and another has taken to a smoker inside the Southernmost house.

I'm hoping one takes to the barrel I use for storing the wheat in the livestock yard, as well as the final composter, so extend the edge of the village. Thus far though... I've seen no more unwanted visitors since the settlers have arrived.

From here, I'll be hoping they populate more, and hopefully enough to get golems spawning (how many do I need?).

Once my village is more "settled", I'll probably work towards exploring more to finish out the map. I do have eight maps left to finish, which is quite a lot.

I'd like to find a red bird in the jungles too to bring back here. I moved the last bird in my house outside, as well, so another one would round things out well. If I wanted one in each tree, I'd need a sixth as there's that many trees, so I'd need a second of one of the colors. I don't know if I'll do that but I at least want one of each, and I'm missing the Red one.

I was not aware of this, so thank you. As a player who routinely tabs out from game to look something up (as recently as yesterday), the old one still tends to come up at the top of web searches, and thus I go to it by default, not knowing better. I'm presuming it's deprecated and will no longer update, so I'd want to bookmark the new one I guess.

Good luck fighting against the SEO. I know how much of an issue good SEO pointing to a bad website (userbenchmark) can cause.

I like the look of the new one much better. It's rather reminiscent of how the original one was before it was cluttered with adds and a 'footer" (I use this very lightly) of extra content. Also, the new logo has the cherry trees on it. That makes it better haha.

The end was last updated in 1.9, not 1.11. What changed in 1.11 that you may be thinking of was shulker boxes were added, which meant the shulkers dropped shulker shells, and the elytra could be powered by firework rockets, but those weren't really noteworthy changes to the end itself.

If Mojang updates the end, it will be because they want to and because they feel like it's worthwhile (such as if the community wants it), not because the next update is a given number. That's rather arbitrary.

An update to the end is probably near the top of one my most desired updates, especially after seeing how the nether was changed. Before that happened, I think I was okay with the end being an unique "end boss" arena only with a further (but limited) dimension beyond that for end city raiding for elytra and shulker shells. But now, I'd definitely like to see it transformed. I'm hoping for some sort of White stone/bricks from it somehow, too (similar to deep slate, but in White, and perhaps with the final tile form replaced with a unique texture).

Quote from Saiph2»

Another useless feature that Minecraft has is people who make pointless and negative posts on forums which don't add to the enjoyment of the game, and which simply depress other players because all they do is whine and complain.

Yes, it does work both ways. Not every loud complaint is equally valid and it's simply impractical to appease everyone. Sometimes players do have to understand that they don't make the best balance decisions (I know I certainly couldn't). But expecting a community this size to be perfectly harmonious is naive; we all have different ideas of what we want.

I think a lot of people just don't know how to disagree, so they cope with it by ridiculing it?

I'm not even sure what to suggest about people getting depressed because others have criticisms. Does that really happen? Maybe not let every little thing upset oneself or sway one's stance and induce depression? (This isn't directed at you, necessarily, but just at people who let disagreements existing depress them.)