Minecraft is one of the biggest gaming titles in the more recent history of gaming.
With the new “Caves & Cliffs” update sparking the interest of their player base and bringing them back to the game, players are having fun pressing the new limits of Minecraft.
Loyal fans of the game have kept a close eye on news from Minecraft’s development team and the process they’ve gotten through to release the massive, game-altering update.
There’s a whole new world to explore with the “Caves & Cliffs” update.
How Big Is A Minecraft World?
A Minecraft world can come in one of four sizes that include classic, small, medium, and large.
Classic Minecraft maps are 2,916 chunks, small Minecraft maps are 4,096 chunks, medium Minecraft maps are 36,864 chunks, and large Minecraft maps are 102,400 chunks.
A chunk is a large unit of blocks that create the landscape.
They are 16 blocks in length, 16 blocks in width, and 256 blocks in height.
Chunks are what make up the landscape that is randomly generated, and blocks are the individual units of dirt, sand, stone, cobblestone, or whatever material you desire.
There are a little less than 750,000 blocks on the surface of a classic Minecraft world, a little over one million blocks across a small map, well over nine million blocks for a medium map, and over 26 million blocks across a large map.
Most versions of Minecraft share these world dimensions, but the Nintendo Switch isn’t able to handle a large world.
This isn’t the first time that Mojang has had to create a unique version of its game for Nintendo’s systems.
When Minecraft was announced for the Nintendo 3DS, players were quick to realize how much smaller the worlds were compared to when they would play it on their computers, Xbox, or PlayStation systems.
On the Nintendo 3DS version of Minecraft, there are only three world sizes for players to choose from.
Small has 1,764 chunks and 451,584 blocks for players to explore within.
Medium world maps are made up of 7,056 chunks and 1.779 million blocks.
Large maps gave players 15,876 chunks and an area of 4,064,256 possible blocks to explore.
With these smaller maps, more players were able to discover what happens when you reach the end of the seemingly endless maps.
What Happens When You Reach the End Of The Map?
While exploring the maps on foot, it may seem like the world is randomly generated for an eternity.
However, Minecraft worlds have a clear limit to them that few players ever reach.
In the earliest editions, the area outside of the map was completely inaccessible and the map was limited to an area of 256 by 256 by 64 blocks.
The border of the world became a wall of bedrock in an update that came shortly after the public release of the game.
Players found that they weren’t able to build on the outer tiles of the map and couldn’t build on the bedrock.
In later editions of the game, the Minecraft Far Lands were added to the edge of the map.
Mojang played with the idea of maps that could generate themselves forever, but some malfunctions would arise in the world noise generators.
This caused what fans would go on to call the Minecraft Far Lands.
The Far Lands would start to appear 12,550,821 blocks from the world’s origin point and there are 10 different types of Far Lands.
These types include low noise, high noise, selector noise, depth noise, scale noise, classic world noise, island carver noise, soil depth, sand beaches, and gravel beaches.
Although the Far Lands were the result of a coding malfunction, they became an infamous part of early Minecraft.
They even earned themselves a reference in Minecraft: Story Mode and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
Classic world noise was the most common type of Far Lands terrain and caused walls of flat stone to appear.
In later versions, the Far Lands were removed and replaced with a translucent wall with a properly generated world on the other side.
Far Lands are now only a distant memory that veteran Minecraft players will remember.
How Does The New “Caves & Cliffs” Update Affect World Size?
The new “Caves & Cliffs” update that Mojang recently released increased the amount of buildable area that players have to work with from a height of 256 blocks to 320 blocks.
This update was necessary if Mojang wanted to give players the ability to build on the new higher mountains that can now be randomly generated.
Before the update, it was impossible to build anything higher than 256 blocks.
No matter where the surface that the players built on was, players could no longer place blocks after the 256-point on the Z-axis.
However, not all of the new block additions went towards the top of the map.
While players are able to build higher, they are also able to dig lower.
The lowest that players were able to go was 0 on the Y-axis, but they are now able to go all the way to -64 on the Y-Axis.
The other 64 blocks were added to the build height.
With the “Caves & Cliffs” update, Minecraft’s development team wanted to give Minecraft a facelift to match what gaming systems were capable of handling.
They looked at the game from the very bottom of the world to the top of the world to find where they could make improvements.
For years, players had complained about the height limit.
Mojang wanted to satisfy the needs of their players, but the technology that goes into the popular gaming systems isn’t always able to handle what they’re able to create.
While developers and fans may be on the same page when it comes to what a game needs to change, there are often situations in which game developers are simply trying to make compatible versions of their games.
This means that compromises must be made on all versions of the game.
What Else Is Included In The “Caves & Cliffs” Update?
Expanding the buildable area was only one small part of the massive “Caves & Cliffs” update.
The “Caves & Cliffs” update had to be implemented in multiple phases in order to ensure stability across the different versions of Minecraft.
One of the biggest additions to the game that came with the “Caves & Cliffs” update was the new mobs added to the game.
Mobs are any of the groups of creatures that can be found in the world of Minecraft, from the gentle pig to the fearsome Ender Dragon.
The new wave of mobs includes glowing squids, axolotls, goats, and wardens.
Mojang also changed the way that aggressive mobs like zombies, spiders, and skeletons spawn.
When players want to prevent these mobs from spawning within an area, they will use torches to increase the light level.
Previously, a player simply needed any level of light to prevent the mobs from spawning.
Now, mobs will spawn anywhere that has a light level of 11 or lower.
This means that players will need to use more torches to keep mobs from spawning in a certain area.
The new update also looks to bring the largest change that the caves of Minecraft have ever seen.
Before the 1.18 update, you could see only a couple of “biomes” underground, which included caves and mineshafts.
There are now noise caves, lush caves, dripstone caves, and the deep dark biome.
Noise caves serve as the new most common underground biome and come in two forms: cheese and spaghetti.
Spaghetti noise caves are thin, winding paths, while cheese noise caves are wide areas with stone columns.
Both of these types of caves may include aquifers, which are large ore deposits that are underwater.
With new caves come new locations for Minecraft explorers to discover.
What Were The Results Of The 2021 Mob Vote?
In between the releases of the different parts of the “Caves & Cliffs” update, Minecraft announced their 2021 Mob Vote.
Mojang regularly holds votes for players to participate in, giving them a clearer view of what players want.
During this year’s 2021 Mob Vote, three helpful mobs were being considered for later releases of Minecraft.
These mobs included the copper golem, the glare, and the allay.
The copper golem was a mob that would help the player by pressing any nearby buttons on repeat until the copper they were made of oxidized to the point of freezing them.
The player could then scrap the little robot-like creature or brush off the oxidation with their ax.
The glare was a grumpy but friendly creature that would float in areas that were dark enough for mobs to spawn.
These would help players eliminate vulnerable corners and crevices within their home bases and could be carried around in the player’s inventory.
Although fans loved the glare and the copper golem, it was the allay that ended up winning.
The allay is a small, flying mob that picks up resources that are scattered along the ground.
Players can choose to keep them at home or carry them along on their adventures.
However, allays will always get distracted from their job if there’s a note block in the area.
Instead of collecting materials, the allay will drop all of their resources off at the note block and begin to dance instead.
For players with large farms, the allay can serve as the perfect harvester.
The only downside of the allay is that they aren’t able to collect resources that have not been mined.
Once the item is on the ground, the allay is more than glad to pick the item up for the player.
How To Customize Your World Size
One of Minecraft’s biggest strengths is the freedom it gives the player to make their world exactly as they see fit.
While there is plenty of customization that can be done with so many blocks available to players, you can also adjust the settings of the world before you even enter it.
In the Bedrock version of Minecraft, you can choose the world size while first setting up the world.
Your options for Bedrock include classic, small, medium, and large.
For players who are on the Java edition of Minecraft, customizing the world takes more technical know-how.
In order to change the world border, you will need to be the server operator which happens when you create a world.
The first thing you’ll want to do is turn on coordinates for your hub and decide what the center of your world is going to be.
Once you have found the spot, you will want to type “/worldborder <X> <Z>” (make sure that you replace the X and Z with the X and Z values you want as the center of your world).
Then you will type “/worldborder set <size>” (replace “size” with the number of blocks in your world to be in any direction).
Minecraft worlds are really just large, decorative squares, so the number you put in the command will make your world that many blocks wide in any direction.
The maps under 1,000 blocks are tiny, so players will want to choose a higher number for a decent-sized map.
However, it is also important to consider what your device is capable of handling.
Although it may be tempting to make a massive world, too large a world can cause your computer or laptop to crash or overheat.
How To Quickly Reach The End Of The Map
Players who are willing to take the trip out to the world’s edge without commands may want to consider using more than just their legs or a horse to get around.
Taking the worldwide journey on foot will take you hours and leave you vulnerable to attacks from aggressive mobs.
Those who are willing to get creative will be rewarded with a shorter and more enjoyable journey to the edge of the world.
The two best ways to travel are by boat or elytra, the attachable wings that can be found in End Cities.
The elytra method works better for getting to your destination, and the boat method is better for those who want to go back to their home base afterward.
The boat method is also easier to achieve, but both methods are going to require you to put at least a couple of hours into your game.
For those who prefer to travel by air, you’re going to need your elytra and some small fireworks.
Fireworks give the player a massive speed boost and can keep you from hitting the ground if you angle yourself properly.
The boat method will require that players have a boat, a shovel or pickaxe with silk touch, and an inventory’s worth of ice blocks.
Start by mining ice blocks with your silk touch tool of choice until you have enough to make a path.
As you traverse the land, place ice blocks on the ground until you get to the edge of the map.
Then when you want to return, you can place the boat on the ice and begin rowing at the speed of light.
Minecraft gives players plenty of options to achieve whatever goal comes to mind.
NEXT: Why Are Flies So Annoying? (Top 10 Reasons)
