The Beginning of the Beginning of the End
Entry 11 ()
It’s time for the things! I’ve updated to 1.19 (with a few other changes) and we’ve got brand new 2022 Minecraft waiting for us beyond the Halo… and we’re even on the path to finally get out there in person.
I got tired of waiting for OptiFine to update (preview releases did finally start coming a few days ago on 6/29) and, while looking for any news about it, learned a few things.
It looks like I’m actually late to the party on migrating away from OptiFine to newer performance mods (Sodium, etc.), so I decided to finally give those a try in the form of the Fabulously Optimized modpack, which specifically aims to be an OptiFine successor. So far, I’d say it’s mostly an improvement.
I didn’t do any scientific testing or compare FPS numbers or anything – in fact, now that I think about it, I gave it a disadvantage by leaving it at a render distance of 24 chunks, where on OptiFine I’d usually use 16 – but on the whole, things seem to run more smoothly. It’s particularly noticeable in the jungle and Nether. Not to say I don’t have any complaints…
OptiFine has a configurable “fog start” setting, which more seems to control fog depth – that is, over how much distance things go from no fog to full fog – and I leave mine towards the middle at 0.4. It also has no effect in the Nether, using vanilla fog settings instead. In Fabulously Optimized, the only choices are vanilla or maximum (you can choose where fog begins – this shot was at 23 chunks – but it always transitions very quickly from no fog to all the fog). I’ve ended up just leaving it on vanilla.
I was having a Z‐fighting issue (check the bottom of the iron bars there – it doesn’t look that bad in the thumbnails, but click to zoom in), which actually turns out to be a vanilla bug that OptiFine had been taking care of. Vanilla Tweaks has a fix, thankfully, and it only changes the model so it can still be used with your resource pack of choice.
There was also a weird rendering bug I ran into while caving, where the far wall wasn’t visible and the sky was showing through. And not in the way it’s always happened where it just takes a moment to load in and render properly – I mean that while standing in one spot and slightly moving the mouse, it would disappear and reappear depending on the angle. I tried tweaking a few settings and couldn’t fix it, but I never ran into it anywhere else, so… eh.
Lastly – while performance is mostly better, I’ve already ran into a problem a couple times where it starts hiccuping, slowing down for a moment every five to ten seconds or so, eventually locking up for minutes at a time. (The first time, it actually ran out of memory. It had been running fine for probably an hour or two beforehand.) I’m not 100% sure of a cause, but it seemed to happen after quitting to the main menu and reloading the world. In any case, closing and reopening the game solves it, but it does feel like a step back from OptiFine, where this happened less often and could be quickly fixed by just toggling to fast graphics and back.
And, admittedly, the pack is still in beta for 1.19, so these may just be growing pains.
I also noticed that the Faithful Pack, which is usually ready to go for game updates, was still on 1.18. And in looking into that I found I’m also late to the party on learning about that whole… situation. Their About page has more info, but the tl;dr is that its original creator (Vattic) disappeared in 2016, and the artist who picked up the leadership reins (Kraineff) not only falsely claimed he had Vattic’s permission to take over development, but went as far as putting the damn thing up for sale on the Bedrock Marketplace, where it has the dubious honor of being the most expensive resource pack available. The truth came out when Vattic returned in 2020, and many of the contributing artists left to create, with his blessing, a new pack called “Compliance” (which, in confusing but good news, now has ownership of the “Faithful” name and has officially begun using it as of 1.19).
So I’ve switched from the pirated version to the “what’s‐old‐is‐new‐again” version. The pirated version was always free (as in beer) on Java anyway, but learning about all this really leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and continuing to use the pack feels like advertising and tacitly supporting it. Which is a shame, because – at least for now – it’s in some ways the better version, mostly because of its additional support for “natural” (rotated), variated, and connected textures. In particular, bookshelves really suffer from the tiling. (I also prefer the pirated tall grass, but that’s the only real stylistic difference that jumps out at me.) But I’m sure that will come to the true Faithful pack in time – and if not, perhaps I’ll feel better about using (parts of) the pirated one after it’s no longer for sale. And on the plus side, it does have quite a few add-ons available, including 32x alternatives to some of the venerable Vanilla Tweaks.
This also means a change to the background textures used here on the site – I’ve removed the pirated versions and replaced them with vanilla.
Anyway, with the modpack tested out and the resource packs replaced, it was almost finally time to jump into 1.19 and explore some 2022 Minecraft. But first, I’d need some 2022 Minecraft. Earlier in June I had gone ahead and pre‐generated some 1.19 terrain beyond the Halo – I didn’t want to just leave it for when I finally made it out there, because then the new blending feature would ruin the “hard border” effect – and, based on some guesswork from YouTube videos and no actual testing of my own, figured two chunks would be enough.
Two chunks were not enough. (Images spoilered in case you’d rather wait for the “big reveal” another day.)
I ended up redoing it with twelve chunks for good measure and, checking a few points semi‐randomly, that seems to be far enough to not trigger the blending. Great success!
…oh, and apparently when I first set this all up, I’d set a world border at 7,168 with optimism that I might make it out to the far edge of the Halo before 1.18 1.19 dropped. Had to clear that.
The Nether, of course, has its Halo too… only it came out differently than expected? I had reused this world’s seed in a 1.18 snapshot and found that the Nether was generating differently than in 1.16.5, but now in 1.19 it seems to be generating just as it has been. Either they fixed a bug (I understand 1.18 was never intended to change the Nether) or I messed up the seed in testing, but whatever the case, the only obvious differences passing through the Nether’s Halo will be that it’s all nether wastes all the time and that there are no structures. (Though things have been added to the Nether over the years, its underlying terrain hasn’t really changed since Beta, as you can see below.)
Finally, now it was time to get back into the world properly. Updates in place, I set out for a grand adventure… to the bottom of my starter mine.
I dug deeper, wanting to start new branches at a few different Y‐levels: −3 for copper and lapis (copper will be much more common at higher altitudes beyond the Halo, but this is the highest it can be found here, and it only gets more scarce going deeper – and lapis should be slightly more common down here than in old generation above), −17 for gold (also seemingly a better depth than in the old mine), and −54 for diamonds and – maybe? – the whole reason I skipped 1.18: The deep dark.
Layer by layer, I found more and more stone replaced by deepslate. I kept the debug screen up so I could make note of Y=−3 to dig out a little for that copper. As I reached it, the biome readout suddenly changed to dripstone caves, and Lena Raine’s “Wending” kicked in. Day 1,152, over three game years into the life of the world, I had finally reached 2022 Minecraft. Halfway into 2022, but hey. Not my fault Caves & Cliffs became a three‐part update.
Deeper. I made it as far as Y=−23 before breaking into a cave and getting my first sight of the new generation.
Ah, but just a taste of the caves won’t do, will it? The real adventure lays where it always has – out to the Halo and beyond, where we’ll not only see the cliffs, but even more of the caves as well, open to the surface. And I made a plan for that journey awhile back: Find a second village, recruit a cartographer, follow their woodland explorer map, and continue on to finally see all those wonders in person. Then come home with a totem and go fight the dragon.
Now, I didn’t want to head straight out there. Finding a second village probably wouldn’t be quick, and it certainly wouldn’t be in that shiny new 1.19 terrain. (For some perspective on just how far that is compared to what’s been explored, have a look at the map with the “custom” layer turned on – I’ve added the borders between the rings of the world. You may need to zoom farther out.) So I stuck around Roam taking care of a few things.
Well, actually, first I went and updated my advancements checklist, because there’ve been some changes since 1.17: Updated descriptions here, new parents there, a couple handfuls of entirely new ones… and basically a full rewrite of Adventuring Time. That particular beast no longer counts certain biomes, starts counting others, and of course adds the newest ones from these updates. It knocked my progress from 31/42 down to 25/52, which is a bit annoying because, like, I’ve already been to flower forests and sunflower plains; they just weren’t tracked before. Oh well.
I also returned to that second spider dungeon near Spawn to check its chests and, nope, no “otherside.” Nor any other music discs, nor much of anything useful at all, in fact. Also oh well. It was a long shot anyway.
I spent some time in the new mines down below Y=0 and now have a starter supply of copper, some tuff and dripstone, and a whole double chest of deepslate. As is typical, that took a toll on the tools, so I went to the spider farm to mend them and found it was spidering slower than it had spidered before. Seems too much light was spilling into the spawning chamber now that they’ll only spawn at zero block light. I ended up taking down the lantern in my side of the kill area, digging a few meters into the back wall, and sticking a torch there instead – that got it back up to speed. And with everything repaired, it was time to go.
To adventure!
I decided to start from the stronghold and head north, in part to try out the new chest boats that were added. They’re somewhat limited, but I like them. (I’ve also left one permanently floating above the stronghold entrance, as both a marker buoy and a relay for full inventories.) My main complaint is I have a habit of Shift + clicking things from the inventory into the hotbar, but sitting in a chest boat, that just moves them into the chest instead. Can’t say how many times I “lost” the map this way…
Now, on a previous expedition, I’d noticed that ocean ruins were surprisingly easy to raid and I wasn’t coming across many drowned, which turned out to be because I was dumb and had generated the world in peaceful. That’s since been corrected, and I’ve gotta say, it’s paying off.
It never seemed to happen anywhere screenshot‐worthy, but I want to note that I love having the “sleeping always resets the weather counter” bug fixed now. It’s so nice having more rain.
After filling two new maps, peeking into the uncharted territories beyond them, and still not sighting another village, I decided to pick another direction rather than head farther out. But south, or east? I already have a portal to get part of the way south, but then would have to head through the jungle to reach new lands, and beyond lay still more jungle to map. East would be through the Overworld the whole way, but it would also be easy terrain, through the desert and savanna to the ocean where I could skirt around that jungle.
After a couple trips back to Roam to drop off the spoils of the northern adventure, it was settled: To the eastern frontier!
It actually wasn’t all that adventurey out there – mostly more of the same oceans, plains, and forests. Couldn’t even spy much interesting in the water on the way in, though there was a lone shipwreck.
Finishing up, though, there was a bit of mountainous terrain at the south edge of the map… and off in the distance, I almost missed the sight of a little house on the plains.
This village is quite different from Intersylva. Less hazardous, for a start – it’s mostly surrounded by open plains, with no real cave openings I could find. There’s just one little tunnel under a path, short enough that I think during the day is lit well enough to prevent any hostile mobs from showing up, though I threw a torch down just in case. I guess there are a ravine and a narrow vertical drop too, but those can be easily fenced off, and they’re both past the far edges of town anyway.
Another difference is that this one’s flatter and more spread out. Kind of a blank canvas for adding onto – which is good, because while I counted 13 beds, I found zero job sites; and, sure enough, the 11 villagers I saw at their evening meeting all looked to be unemployed. This’ll be quite a project! So many choices – and such riches aplenty. But not a bad problem to have, if you ask me.
Gonna have to give this some thought. What professions to encourage them to take up? We’ll need that cartographer first, of course, and every village needs at least one farmer. 13 beds, and there are 13 professions, so this could be a diverse place with one of each… but that feels like too much of a one‐stop shop, something I’m hoping to avoid. As it is, we’ve got over half the professions represented down in Intersylva already. Hmm. It’s in the open plains, with all four traditional Overworld animals around, so… maybe this is a ranching village? Butchers, leatherworkers, and shepherds? Yeah. That’s a start.
In the meantime, I opened a Nether portal to see where it led… which was the cap of a giant crimson fungus over the edge of the lava sea. Yikes. I did spy a fortress fairly close by, which I think must be the same one I’ve already been visiting for blaze rods. Made note of the coordinates and returned to the Overworld for the trip home.
On the way back, I did find a bit more loot spread among a shallow cluster of ruins. That included four buried treasure maps, all of which were of course identical.
And led to a treasure I’d already found.
So now I’m back at home, and the next step is to get this village added to the Nether hub – then start training the villagers in their new careers (and of course start building them some workspaces too). Once the cartographer becomes an apprentice, it’ll be time for the next adventure: Finally, out to a mansion, the Halo, and beyond. Or the mansion out in the beyond, idk; who knows how well explorer maps’ll work with how this world is set up? Point is: We’re getting there!