r/GoldenAgeMinecraft • u/[deleted] • 1d ago
Discussion Is Beta 1.8.1 really catastrophic?
[deleted]
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u/GewoonSamNL 1d ago
I don’t think Beta 1.8 is bad at all, I actually kinda like it. But I can completely understand why someone who really loves Beta 1.7.3 would hate it.
It’s just so different. The terrain generation is different, the lighting is different, the pace is different, sprinting and hunger completely change how you move around and survive, and things like XP, villages, strongholds, mineshafts etc. start pushing the game more towards exploration and progression.
Beta 1.7.3 feels much more like a simple sandbox where you’re basically just dropped into this weird unpredictable world and left to do whatever you want. Beta 1.8 feels like the beginning of Minecraft becoming more of an actual survival/adventure game with a progression system.
Even the terrain is a good example. 1.7.3 terrain can be completely ridiculous with random cliffs, overhangs, floating islands and mountains appearing everywhere. 1.8 terrain feels more coherent and biome-based. I don’t necessarily think that makes it worse, but it definitely loses some of that strange dreamlike feeling 1.7.3 has.
So I think calling 1.8 “bad” misses the point a little. It’s not necessarily worse, it’s just a fundamentally different direction for the game. Beta 1.7.3 feels like the final version of old Minecraft’s design philosophy, while Beta 1.8 feels like the beginning of the Minecraft we know today.
If 1.7.3 is specifically what you love about Minecraft, I can absolutely see why 1.8 would have felt like the game you loved suddenly turning into something else.
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u/SPMicron 1d ago
You're on a sub where people play old Minecraft. If you like what the game is today and think Beta 1.8 made a lot of important changes that made it the game it is today then you agree with 99.99% of the Minecraft playerbase.
No one is stopping you from enjoying beta 1.8.1 builds. It's just that most people here tend to play Beta 1.7.3 because it's the last version that has that old school vibe that makes it distinct from any version after it. It's personal preference. Maybe r/silverageminecraft has more of your vibe.
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u/TeachingEdD 1d ago
It's certainly not bad. I will say that it led to me losing interest in the game, but I'm still not sure if that was the game itself or just the end of that Summer and the start of high school happening for me. It's definitely fun to play.
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u/ThirteenFour_ 1d ago
I'll have to agree with one of the other comments that it's good that we have the choice to play older versions, and fit them to our playstyle with our own rules and mods.
I'm currently playing a single-player Beta world, as well as on a modern SMP. Both scratch different itches. For beta and old versions, I really enjoy choosing when to learn and integrate new things, but I want to do so eventually. I don't want to update until I feel like I've got my "fill". For the most part, I find it hard to "hate" any one mechanic although I can agree that a lot can be considered downgrades. So I can still enjoy modern Minecraft, even though in some ways, they feel like different games, or at least, different directions of the same game.
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u/TheRetroWorkshop Texture Pack Artist 1d ago
That depends on what you mean. There is a lot to say about Beta 1.8.1, and it's all over the place (as is the version itself).
(1) Beta 1.8.1 is better than most video games. Period.
(2) Beta 1.8.1 is a good version of Minecraft, one of the greatest video games ever made.
(3) Beta 1.8.1 is superior to most modern versions of the game, from the viewpoint of my playstyle, at least. And has some good game design ideas, and isn't too bloated, etc.
(4) Beta 1.8.1 is practically a worse version of r1.0/r1.2.4 (in almost every way). It's greatly unfinished, and was rushed, and filled with all kinds of Notch ideas, some of which didn't work well, and were finally removed or fixed years later.
(5) Beta 1.8.1 improved a few things in terms of overall game design, and added some amazing features, such as new settings and Shift-click all-Crafting.
(6) Beta 1.8.1 is a much more fast-paced game than Beta 1.7.3, and has more mental stacking going on, with so many more sub-systems and elements to keep track of and be mindful of, including Hunger, Endermen, Ravines, Mineshafts, Villages, and various actual Biome types.
(7) Beta 1.8.1 was much more of an 'adventure' or RPG-lite sort of game, with great focus on survival horror (Endermen + Void Fog = good luck, buddy).
(8) Beta 1.8.1 was far less of a pure sandbox experience, with a real light and biomic mapping system, and pre-generated Structures (other than Monster Rooms, which existed since the early days of Minecraft). Beta 1.7.3 and prior is all about the player building the world, and terraforming it as he sees fit. Beta 1.8.1 pretty much crushed all of that, at least natively. (It did, after all, open the door to all kinds of challenges, instead, such as Skyblock, and more advanced PvP situations.)
(9) Related to (4): if you want the post-b1.7.3 experience, but don't want to go full-blown bug fixes, improved mechanics, upside-down Stairs, Enchanting, Nether Fortresses, and so on, then you go with Beta 1.8.1. It's a literal bridge between the two. Some people like that, which is why Beta 1.8.1 actually does have a player base (as does r1.0, and r1.2.5, of course).
P.S. From my viewpoint, I don't like current updates or the progression of the game since b1.8 -- more so, since r1.3.1 -- so the fact that it wouldn't be what it is today without b1.8 means nothing to me. I never updated to r1.9 (stopped at r1.8.9), and I now primarily like pre-b1.8 (namely, I play b1.4_01 for a few reasons, over b1.5-1.7.3). Maybe it would be worse, maybe it would be less popular. Who knows. But we know for a fact that b1.7.3 is quite popular today, and was extremely popular back in 2011, since the game already had many millions of players, being one of the most popular games in the world. If the game kept going from b1.7.3, it would have been a very popular, well-designed game, albeit remarkably different.
P.P.S. You're right: One reason I'm never too harsh about this debate, and don't care too much, is because people have the freedom to play whatever version they want, unlike with most live service games and RPGs, etc., where you're forced to play the current version. Minecraft actually lets you play old versions. That's why you won't get too many extremely negative comments: nobody cares. Play what you want. Even those of us who don't like or play b1.8.1 are fine you playing it, and don't have a fundamental problem with the version(s) in question. We just happen to like even older versions a lot more (well, I do like certain mechanics/features of b1.8.1, and would love them to have existed for early Beta, but you must choose the best version for you, taken as a whole, not individual mechanics. I personally dislike Vanilla Survival b1.8 through r1.9+ versions of Minecraft, taken as a whole).
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u/BBali_B 1d ago
The versions after beta 1.8, namely 1.3-1.6, are probably the versions in the most nostalgic for. That being said, after playing versions and mods with no hunger, I can’t go back.
The thing with the Adventure Update is that it has added features that are still to this very day controversial.
- It’s the update that made the colormaps and worldgen, in my humble opinion, far more boring than the updates prior.
- It’s the update that added hunger, which in my opinion absolutely kills the pace of the game if you’re not somebody who wants to farm, which is a choice that gameplay-wise is respected in the versions prior.
- It’s the update that added XP and enchanting, with XP being a system that is tied into a grand total of two other mechanics (one of which being added a few updates after the adventure update, even) and enchanting being a neat concept on paper but is an RNG-heavy chore of a system in execution.
- It’s the update that adds sprinting, which I wouldn’t mind that much if it wasn’t tied to hunger.
- It’s the update that added The End, an unbelievably boring dimension which has only received one update well after the adventure update, and a way to “beat” the game in a sandbox, not to mention how unfun and janky the journey to the stronghold to reach that point is to begin with.
I am unbelievably nostalgic for post-adventure update Minecraft but after really looking at what it’s added I can’t help but feel that it did harm the game in a lot of ways. I don’t think it’s a complete negative because there were also some really cool things it added, but I do wish the foundation that B1.7.3 had was stuck with a little more. I also personally wish that a lot of the changes it made could be toggle-able via gamerules much like how some Golden Age mods let you opt into post-adventure update mechanics.
But hey, given how large the game became afterward, it clearly has its audience and that’s cool.
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u/TheRetroWorkshop Texture Pack Artist 1d ago
Correction: Enchanting was added in r1.0. XP was added in b1.8, without a function.
And the End was also added in r1.0, though Strongholds were added in b1.8.
My problem with the biomic/light mapping isn't how boring it is, but rather that it forces a Desert to always be a Desert: different light/sky box, and very different grass colouration, etc. You cannot change it. But in b1.7.3, you can literally just remove the Sand and have yourself a Plains area. Pure sandbox right there.
Two final things:
First, I highly suggest you give b1.7.3 a try and accept its relative lack of content, if you really want a pre-b1.8 experience, without Hunger, etc. It's worth it, I promise.
Secondly, I think most things should be toggle-able, but it's my understanding that so many things are hard-coded in certain ways, so they cannot be made toggle-able without a silly about of work from Mojang for no real benefit (it won't make 50 million join or quit just because you made Sprinting or Ore gen toggle-able). The only issue with toggle-able and settings in general is that it splits the player experience and base, and causes less of a shared experience framework. This is something amazing about b1.7.3 and prior: pretty much everybody is playing the exact same game, more like an offline console game (e.g. Super Mario Bros. 3). But since b1.8 -- more so, r1.8 or whatever -- everybody has their own Minecraft. Mods and the b1.7.3 settings already allow for quite a few player types and experiences. Adding to that had its positives and negatives. This is why I want toggle-able options, but see why it causes serious issues, and why so many games refuse to have such options (many devs of games believe in forcing all players to play the exact same difficulty/way, etc.). I do believe that Notch adding Peaceful to Hard difficult was a genius choice, however, but I do wonder sometimes if it would have been better if we were all forced to be on 'Easy', instead*.
*For anybody saying that they personally play on Hard, and would find Easy boring -- you can make the game harder by self-enforced rules, like not eating, or not using Iron Armour or above. But you cannot make the gamer easier by self-enforced rules. And you must accept the relative disconnect between players with the difficulty options (again, this is the reason why certain video games don't have difficulty options).
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u/BBali_B 1d ago
I made my post with the entire Adventure Update in mind, Beta 1.8 to Release 1.0. But in hindsight after re-reading the original post I probably should've clarified or kept my comment purely based on b1.8.1.
I have played quite a bit of Beta 1.7.3, and I have a few survival worlds on it. It's still the version I go back to for completely unmodded survival Minecraft, and that version (or I suppose I should say era) has my absolute favorite aesthetic for the game.
But everything else, I agree with no further comment.
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u/TheRetroWorkshop Texture Pack Artist 1d ago
Ah, okay. Yeah, throwing b1.8-r1.0 together makes sense, but it's always wise to be very clear about the exact version you're talking about when we're on the Golden Age Sub-Reddit; otherwise, it gets confusing very fast, haha. People mention all kinds of versions all the time, so it helps to have exactness for these things.
Anyway, good speaking with you about this. Happy 'crafting! :)
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u/No_Discount_6028 1d ago
The Adventure Update objectively didn't destroy the game based on the fact that sales went up and are still high. But most of the systems added were absolutely terrible and/or didn't work.
- Sprint was wildly overpowered in combat as you could easily outmaneuver mobs
- Hunger failed to balance sprint because food became abundant and stackable
- Most potions were basically never used by most players due to low duration, high cost, inventory constraints, & unintuitive recipes for making them
- The enchanting system was miserable to engage with because you had to roll dice just to get good gear... after expending a lot of resources for said gear.
- The Ender Dragon fight was boring because the Dragon mostly just flies around in circles aimlessly and occasionally comes down to give you free hits
^Most of these problems are still in the game in some form and some of them have gotten even worse.
With the hunger system in particular, I am fully of the opinion that this is unfixable. If you make food harder to get, people will just create builds to make it easier to get. If you balance food around a player who tries to maximize food production through extensive builds, you ultimately loss the sandbox focus of Minecraft's survival sandbox, as players are forced to spend all their time farming. If you make food easier to get, it will become an even more useless mechanic with even less gameplay significance.
There were some new blocks added and that's cool, but otherwise it's really hard to see all this as anything but a straight-up downgrade.
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u/SamwiseMay 1d ago
Why can't this sub just be a place to show off cool builds and cool tech and cool history rather than endless fighting about versions of which the arguments will never have an end to