ATTENTION: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE read this whole thing properly and think beforeĀ you comment. No off-topic “when will 1.8 be out” or “Option X sucks” please. Tell me what you prefer and WHY. If you want to know more about 1.8 please read Notch’s blog. Don’t ask me. Also: When I mention below that something is a lot of work, this means that it will take time to do so. If I am in a busy month or on a trip, it can take weeks to finish stuff. Please keep that in mind when choosing an option. Thanks. So here it is:
There is an issue coming up with 1.8 and the worlds we are running in. The issue is that 1.8 will have a new algorithm to generate the world.
How does this matter?
All the current worlds are generated with the old method. When a player leaves, I reset the area and it gets regenerated with the new method. Same when we expand a currently used world (Kingdom / Nether), it will be generated with the new method.
Why is this a problem?
Since the new method does not align with/care about the old method, there will be 2 different worlds merged into each other as the complete terrain infrastructure will change. Neighboring lots will not have the same height, and strange terrain breaks will happen between biomes and land/see formations. Next to the fact that the map will look unreal, it will also become unpassable in places due to high cliffs appearing the in middle of your path. It will also be less natural and beautiful where the old areas border with the new areas. On top of it there will be new materials/ores/trees/features that only are available in newly generated worlds.
What can we do?
There are several options we have depending on what world we talk about
The World:
- Keep the world. Reset all unoccupied lots. Over time the occupied lots will be reset when they expire or the owner can ask for a reset. It will take some time but we can simply piece by piece regenerate lots and transform the map into a new world.
Advantage: Least disruption to normal gameplay. People get the opportunity to keep their lots or move to a new one.
Disadvantage: Resetting 900 lots is a lot of work. I will need help with that. The map will be really strange for some time.
- Leave all as it is, create a new world in addition. New lots will be on the new world. People on the old world can choose to abandon their lot and move to a new lot in the new world. The city will be copied over to the new world. Once the old world is empty, we delete it. Copying over other buildings will be most likely not possible or only slowly over time.
Advantage: Least work. Beautiful new world, beautiful old world.
Disadvantage: Possible confusions between worlds, further spread of users over multiple worlds. Workload of copying the city, portals, recreating the railway etc which I probably have to do by myself.
The Kingdom:
- Delete everything that has not been build on so far. Regenerate it and live with a strange break in the landscape. Maybe try to smooth it out a bit afterwards.
Advantage: least work. Digging on your plot does not give new materials
Disadvantage: Can be ugly.
- Create a new world. Let people reclaim the lots/nations/towns they had for free and try to copy/paste overland structures over to the new world.
Advantage: Beautiful world.
Disadvantage: Copy/pasting the current huge structures is quite complicated. Some stuff might be impossible (underground structures).
The Skylands:
Do nothing. Since there are no real borders between lots, we can simply regenerate when a lot expires and live with some few small visual breaks.
Advantage: No work. Small issues with visual effects.
Disadvantage: No new materials in the old lots.
I do not see another solution that would make any sense. For one, I refuse to build another railway system. 2nd: copy-pasting stuff of 200×200 size over a void is tricky to impossible
The Nether:
I would simply regenerate a completely new nether.
What should you do now?
Think what the individual options would mean for you. Remember that you would have to start from scratch to take advantage of new ores etc anyhow. Would you rather mine in a mint new world or in a mixed environment world? Tell me what you think is better, if you see additional possibilities and why you think the one or other option is good or bad.
NOTE: If we create a new world/skyland, I will not allow people to have a higher number of lots than before. So if you are for example a settler, you will not be able to have a lot in the old world and the new world.