17 July 2022

Peaks & Valleys are Coming Soon to a Server Near You!

You may have noticed that the world maps have changed. Now they render in glorious, biome-enabled, high-resolution awesomeness.

This is actually an unintended side-effect.

In order to support Minecraft 1.17 and higher, we've had to replace our venerable mapping program with the Minecraft Overviewer. Now that we have done this, we can upgrade Minecraft itself.

Accordingly, on Saturday, 23 July we will upgrade to the latest release of Minecraft 1.18. We will skip version 1.17 altogether. Now you'll be able to enjoy Caves and Cliffs—all in one update with no “to be continued.” The new update will add new terrain below Y=0 to all chunks—yes, your chunks too. It will also raise the build height to Y=320, so take care when planning those flights. No one wants to be the first to discover “Greasy Smear Mountain.”

You can help out by reviewing the official Microsoft release notes for 1.17 and 1.18. Let us know if you see any show-stoppers.

We also plan to remove terrain from the following bounding boxes in X and Z. These chunks are believed to be unoccupied and will be deleted to make way for new terrain.

* -6656..-4609 512..3071: south of fire line pass

* -7168..-2048 -10240..-6145: west of deerseed vacation home

* -2048..-513 -6144..-4097: north of Augean Stables

The web map links do not accurately reflect the extents of the area to be deleted. We will be making some sweeps of the surface prior to actual deletion, and we'll keep the old region files around for awhile… just in case.

The update is expected to cause several hours of downtime on the 23rd, so be sure to craft that coal and sharpen your swords ahead of time.

Take a buddy. It's dark down there.