Everyone has their own personal recollection of their first time playing Minecraft, usually loaded with the same euphoric feeling of a child waking up early on Christmas morning. Minecraft is a warm blanket for the soul. The hand-warming cup of hot chocolate that is the perfect complement to this image is the community-created maps. These maps have evolved alongside Minecraft over the past decade, ranging from simple adventure maps to full-blown game modes.
Many believe that the golden time of Minecraft maps to have been 2009. Minecraft was simpler back then with less tools and mechanics (except for Minecraft mods) available for developers to explore. These limitations didn't stop creators making a range of well-known maps, such as Skyblock and The Walls. They have been downloaded by millions of times and played by millions of users via YouTube Let's Plays. While they're simple in structure, both are distinct variations on Minecraft's primary gameplay. Skyblock is one example. It places you on a small island in the sky, with only lava, water and a tree for you to survive. There are also plenty of difficult challenges to conquer. The Walls, meanwhile, is an action-packed battle royale based on the Hunger Games where each team gets some time to get ready before the walls that separate teams collapse and a free-for-all starts.
Vechs is one of the most influential members of the Minecraft map community. He has made a number of influential maps, including Race for the Wool and Super Hostile. These maps set the standards for what a quality Minecraft game should be. "I've been creating custom games' content since Duke Nukem 3D, and my Super Hostile series has over two million downloads," Vechs says. Super Hostile has received plenty of attention from both players and influencers - there are many Super Hostile lets-plays with over a million views to YouTube.
"It's not every day you create a new genre. It's pretty satisfying," reflects Vechs. "My old map-making process was to create a globe and then open it in MCedit, and remove everything. "I like to start completely from scratch." Although he still adheres to his original methods but the huge leap in quality is amazing to watch for veteran map makers.
"Minecraft maps are evolving for the better, surely. There were many worlds that Minecraft had created and then people were able to find a spot in that world to place signs. Low-effort maps were popular at the time. Now such a thing would be ridiculed. The quality of the products on offer has dramatically increased."
Lucian Tash, better known in the Minecraft community as Chopper2112, helps run the Minecraft-partnered map making group Yeggs. The group was established in 2015 and has since produced 23 maps. At the time, making maps was just an enjoyable hobby for Tash and his friends. "Yeggs was initially created to function as a server on a broken laptop, where a handful of his real-life buddies would play during the break. Tash says that we began creating maps of a small scale from the beginning until 2019 when we joined the Realms Program.
The Realms content creator program was created by Mojang in 2014 and serves as a library that is curated of maps that are created by community members, such as minigames and world template-style maps and adventure maps.
Quality control is a thing that Yeggs takes seriously. "A big goal of ours is to create games that are accessible and this - together with the limitations of the Realms service itself - frequently requires us to come up with innovative solutions to address issues related to lag," Tash says. Sometimes, you might come up with an idea that would require many resources. A lot of technical aspects of the Minecraft map tend to be built around static entities in the game and it can get quite intense on hardware."
Yeggs has used command blocks to make a variety of maps. These blocks are used to execute lines of code. One of their latest maps, Road Runners, is inspired by the Frogger-style antics of popular mobile game Crossy Road. The map uses commands blocks to transform Minecraft into a top-down race against time where you have to carefully avoid mobs of deadly hordes.
Tash says that some of the new commands have allowed for ideas to take shape that couldn't have been done in the pre-1.13 version of the game. "The introduction of datapacks has also dramatically altered the way that maps that are custom made are created. Datapacks allow for more easy access to commands than the command blocks did in the past. A Minecraft map designer can call multiple commands at once or employ recursion for a function call.
Minecraft remains a dynamic project that doesn't rest on its accomplishments. Srazy.info Vechs explains that the basis for Minecraft's unstoppable community is not changing. Empathy is the most crucial quality for mapmaking. You must run an imaginary model of what the player's vision is, how they will feel and what they think. Empathy allows you to create difficult curves and also to know when you should give breaks or add scenic vistas to give the player the feeling of wonder.